Old Habits Die hard
by Gauss
Summary: DEBS Intrigue! Romance! and a Diamond Heist. Canon pairings only.
1. Old Habits

I don't own any of this; which should probably go without saying.

**Chapter 1.**

Old habits die hard, I guess.

I know that sounds weird, but that was really the first thing that ran through my mind. We were back stateside for the first time in four years; and it looked like we were gonna be here for at least a little while. A gallery was showing some of Amy's work; so we were headed back to L.A. There was also some talk of staying and teaching art at UCLA; so this wasn't likely to be a short visit.

I gripped the wheel of the '69 Mustang as it streaked down the freeway. Yeah, I probably could've chosen a little less flashy car; I mean, we're still technically wanted fugitives, although I was pretty sure that the DEBS had basically given up on us. Even when they were looking for us, they really weren't trying very hard. We hadn't even seen a plaid skirt in months.

I looked over at Amy and offered a small smile. Her blue jumper was zipped up to her neck, even though the early evening air was warm enough for us to drive with the windows down.

"You couldn't have bought a Prius?" She asked.

"The first words you've spoken since we left the dealership are 'you couldn't have bought a Prius?" I rolled my eyes at her.

"I mean, something with a little better gas mileage…"

"You mean, something that won't get us caught?" I translated.

"That too."

"You don't really have anything to worry about, remember? Technically, I kidnapped you from Endgame. You're the victim here," I quipped.

"It's not _me_ I'm worried about," the former DEB replied. She smiled thinly, damn girl was starting to pick up my mannerisms. "You go to jail, and the only time I'll get to see you are conjugal visits at the women's prison."

"I didn't get to be genius mastermind supercriminal by getting caught," I grinned. "Besides, some girls out there would love to get laid by a convicted felon."

"Some," she agreed detachedly, "not me." She leaned forward slightly to look in the passenger side mirror. "Take the next exit," she ordered.

I knew that voice. That was her "DEB" voice. The voice she used when she was in spy mode. The last time I'd heard that voice was almost four years ago. "What is it?"

"Two cars back," she recited, businesslike, "black Buick. I've been seeing that car all over town."

I glanced up at the rear view mirror. They didn't seem to be doing anything that screamed "spy" to me. "There are a lot of black Buicks in L.A., honey," I told her gently.

"Not like this," she insisted. "Black Buick, tinted windows. The driver's kept the same distance from us for the last ten miles."

"Think he knows we've spotted him?" I asked. I still wasn't sure I bought her logic, but I'd learned long ago to trust her instincts on this kind of thing. I guess an ex-spy is probably the second best person to spot another one. The best being someone who currently is a spy.

"Don't think so. Either he's just tracking us, or he's waiting for us to make a move," She replied.

I looked up at the road ahead. There were a fair number of cars in all the lanes, but they were pretty widely spaced, and moving quickly. I gritted my teeth and checked to make sure my seatbelt was secure. Without a word, Amy did the same. I looked over at her, meaningfully. "You sure about this?"

"Yeah. He's tailing us."

"That's not what I mean. I mean, if you're right, and we run; then we're back running. It means that none of it's gonna happen: the gallery, the teaching position. It's over. All of it." I told her.

"And if I'm right, and we don't run?" Amy asked.

"Then we get caught, and I go to jail," I replied.

She looked at me and smiled slightly, "punch it."

I gripped the gearshift, and downshifted to third. Amy had griped about getting a manual transmission on this car 'cause she didn't know how to drive it, I had to remind her that buying a '69 Mustang in automatic was either a) impossible or b) sacrilege. I glanced up at the rear view mirror again, so far they hadn't cued into the fact that we were on to them. That'd change soon. I quickly looked at the traffic ahead, trying to pick out a route to weave between the cars. But let's be honest, I was gonna end up winging it.

The tires squealed against the asphalt as I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, aggressively swerving into a small empty space in the left-hand lane. In the mirror, I watched as the Buick swerved to the right, moving closer, then cut back into the center lane just to our right.

"I guess that ends the 'are they following us' debate," Amy commented.

"Yeah, you can gloat later," I replied tightly, swerving into the shoulder and accelerating. I had to put some ground between us and them before I started dodging traffic again.

Whoever was behind the wheel was good. He was behind us almost before I had a car length on him. If I hadn't punched the accelerator, he'd have sideswiped us right into the cement barrier dividing the highway. "Hang on!" I yelled at Amy as I saw the black car grow in the rear view mirror.

It slammed generously into our rear bumper with a loud _crunch_. "Jesus Christ," I muttered, "what the hell did they do to that car?"

"A Buick doesn't have that kind of acceleration," Amy pointed out, needlessly. "I got a feeling that they don't necessarily care if we come back alive."

"DEBS?" I asked frantically as I swerved back into traffic, taking a fraction of a second to glance at the driver's side mirror, to see the Buick fall back to find an opening a couple of cars behind us.

"Doesn't feel right," Amy shook her head. "This doesn't feel like them. They'd be trying to grab us and pump us for information."

"Keep an eye on that car. I'll keep us alive, you just make sure you know where he is," I replied, as I squirted the Mustang into the carpool lane and tried to beg a few more miles per hour out of the engine. The speedometer was just starting to push its way past 100.

"Lucy, get down!" Amy yelled as she grabbed me and tried to force my head and my knees into as close proximity as she possibly could, she then threw herself protectively over me. The driver's side window disintegrated over me, and as the near-unguided Mustang brutally rear-ended the BMW in front of it, I heard the unmistakable _rat-tat-tat_ of a burst of machine gun fire.

"Shit!" I yelled, as I slammed on the brakes, causing the Buick to overshoot us. Then I chanced a peek over the dashboard, just in time to see the beamer we'd just hit spinning into the concrete divider on the right side of the high way. "Dammit, are they okay?" I asked frantically as we sped past the totaled car.

"I think so… I don't know," Amy replied, uncertain. "It doesn't look too bad." She frowned, "hey, he was driving alone in the carpool lane," she added, indignantly.

The Buick, now in front of us, slammed on the brakes. I didn't even bother slowing down, I sped past him, and swerved back into traffic.

"Lucy, we have to get out of here, or someone who isn't us is gonna end up dead," Amy said somberly.

"I know," I replied tightly. Frankly, I was a little more concerned about the possibility that someone who _was_ us was gonna end up dead; but Amy made a good point.

Almost on cue, the traffic cleared in front of us. Not much, but enough that we had a free speedway to run on for a while.

"We're not gonna be able to lose them," Amy told me, "we got anything to shoot back with?"

"Glove box," I replied. I couldn't tell you why I brought them. Neither of us had fired a gun in almost two years; and even then it was only target practice. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Amy liked a little flash in her choice of weapons. A steel-plated Browning Hi-power was her weapon of choice. Me, I went for the more basic: a Beretta 9mm. It did the job nicely, and didn't stand out too much.

The high powered silver pistol slid into her hand with practiced ease and she smoothly chambered the first round. "Magazines?"

I shook my head, "you've only got what's in that load; so make it count."

"Do you like the rear window much?"

I looked at her and frowned at the apparent non-sequitur. "What?"

Amy spun around and fired a series of shots through the rear window. The high-powered rounds tore effortlessly through the tempered glass and splattered against the Buick's front windshield. "Sonuvabitch."

"What?"

"Armored glass. Guess they didn't want to take any chances." Amy replied.

"How about their tires? They look like solid rubber?" I asked.

"With the maneuvering they've been doing? Not likely. Solid rubber makes the car more sluggish," Amy explained. "But I don't have a shot."

"How much time do you need to take one?"

"One opening," Amy replied.

"Okay, you take the front tire, I'll take the rear. Hand me that Beretta."

"You're driving," Amy pointed out.

"Yeah, I know that." I momentarily released the steering wheel long enough to chamber a round. I looked over and arched my eyebrows, "you might want to hold onto something."

Amy looked at me, confusion painted over every feature, then comprehension dawned on her. "Oh no," she shook her head.

I smiled, "trust me?"

"Yes, but…"

"Relax, if we screw this up, then you can tell me that this was a bad idea."

"If we screw this up, we'll be dead," Amy pointed out.

"All the more reason for us not to screw up," I replied. I glanced down at the speedometer. 160. That would do.

I waited for the Buick to close to about half a car length; then I tapped the brakes.

Not much, mind you, just enough to make the driver freak out.

To his credit, he reacted quickly to the brake lights.

He just reacted badly. He swerved to the left, the car balancing on two wheels as he tried to avoid a rear-end collision with the Mustang.

At the same time, I swung the wheel brutally to the right and yanked on the handbrake. The Mustang, reacting almost as if it had read my thoughts, fishtailed and swung around, facing backwards.

Beside me, I heard Amy fire a series of shots at the passenger side front tire of the Buick. The first two bounced off of the car's hubcap, but the third hit home, and the hard rubber tire exploded.

I took a shot, through the windshield this time, hitting the passenger side rear tire.

From there, the laws of physics pretty much took over. Both passenger side tires were pretty much ripped free of the hubs, and the metal rims gauged deep into the pavement. The driver's side still had a substantial amount of momentum, and the large sedan flipped over, like a book pushed too close to the edge of the table.

Yanking on the hand brake again, I swung the car back around, and watched in the rear view mirror as the Buick flipped over and over again; finally coming to a rest, upright, and approximately half its original thickness.

Silence fell over the car as I slowed to something a little closer to the posted speed limit.

I turned over to Amy, trying to sound nonchalant, "so…" I started.

Amy nodded.

"Ever get the feeling that something's going on that you _really_ should know about?"


	2. Old Friends

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff. It's the property of Angela Robinson and Sony Pictures.

Reposted because it got garbled for some reason.

**Chapter 2:**

_So, I was talking to one of my girlfriends the other day, and her cholesterol is like through the roof, you know? And I'm like, "damn girl, high protein diets are overrated." You can't go eating all that red meat and expect it to come back and bite you in your heavily-inflated ass. I mean, get off Atkins and get on the treadmill._

_Anyhow, I've like so got to go right now. I think I just saw Brad Pitt walk by…_

I quickly scanned the short Email message on her PDA before Amy sent it off. "You sure you weren't a valley girl in your past life?"

Amy smiled shyly. "Well, I had to make it sound as not-me as I could."

Communication between her and Max had been pretty one-sided for the last few years. About once a month or so, Amy'd send a post card from wherever we were, no return address, nothing written on it; just to let her best friend know we were okay. This would be the first actual contact she'd had with Max in close to a year. This time, through a disposable cellphone which, hopefully, nobody would be able to trace back to us.

"You're sure Max'll know who it's from?" I asked, "'cause that Email's really not-you."

Amy nodded.

"You're sure that you can trust her?" I asked.

"Lucy," Amy frowned, "she's my best friend."

I held up my hands in surrender, "I'm sorry, I just tend to be a little slow to trust people who held me at gunpoint the last time I saw them."

"_I_ held you at gunpoint, and a few hours later you were dragging me out on a date. _Also_ at gunpoint, I might add," a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Crossbow-point, for the record," I countered, mirroring her grin.

I flopped down on the queen-sized bed next to her. The motel room wasn't exactly luxury accommodations, but it was one of countless motels along the freeway; the perfect place to disappear. Actually, it was the place where a lot of people came specifically _to_ disappear. Quite a few motels around here rented rooms by the hour. I can only guess what the guy in the lobby must have thought when two hot chicks with no luggage showed up at his desk looking for a room. Then again, maybe I don't _want_ to guess.

I rolled onto my side and snuggled close to Amy, automatically finding that little hollow in between her shoulder and her neck that seemed perfectly shaped for the right side of my head. She reached around me, pulling me in closer.

Holding the PDA up she tapped the "send" button, and set the device on the bedside table.

"Five… four… three…" I heard her whisper, "two… one…"

The phone rang. Amy reached over to the small cellular phone on the bedside table and tapped the "send" button.

"Amy?" Max's voice sounded tinny through the tiny speaker of the cellular phone, but it was still perfectly audible from where I lay next to Amy.

"Hi, Max," Amy replied without actually picking up the phone.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" Her tone became harsher, "did Lucy…"

"I'm fine," Amy interrupted. "And no, this isn't about Lucy; not completely, I don't think."

"What is it?"

"Do you know anyone who might have a reason to hunt us down?" Amy asked.

"Other than us, you mean?" Max replied.

I felt Amy stiffen under my fingertips, "yeah, other than you. We were in the middle of an attempted hit on the freeway this morning, and it didn't feel like the kind of thing that the DEBS would do."

"The freeway?" There was a brief pause on the line. "Wait, you're in L.A.?"

It was hard to get a solid read from the tiny speaker of the cellular phone, but she sounded genuine enough.

"You didn't know?" Amy asked.

"No, how could I?" Max replied, "Ms. Petrie might know; but she hasn't mentioned anything about it."

"So who else could be after us?" Amy asked.

"Amy, Lucy's a former criminal mastermind; and L.A. used to be her turf. You want a list of possible suspects, I suggest you try the phonebook. And when you've checked L.A., I suggest you move on to Australia. I imagine they've got a bit of a beef against her, too," Max replied, a slight edge to her voice.

"Gee, thanks Max," I spoke up.

I could almost hear Max wince over the phone. One of my guilty pleasures, I admit: seeing Max Brewer sweat a little. "Oh. Hi, Lucy. Didn't know you were there."

"Yeah, I gathered," I replied, sarcasm dripping off my voice. Under my right cheek, I could feel Amy giggle silently.

"Look, is there anything you can tell us?" Amy asked.

"If something's going on, they haven't told me about…" Max stopped briefly, "wait a minute. We sent a team to the freeway after the crash. Not us, though, so I don't know what they found; but if Ms. Petrie thinks that you were involved, it makes sense that she'd be keeping our team out of it."

"So she does know," Amy shook her head.

"Or suspects, anyway. We're still the top squad around here," Max's voice replied, "if she didn't send us out, she must've figured we'd have some reason to hide whatever we found."

Amy chewed on her lower lip for a moment.

"Max, we need a favor," I told the red phone.

"Name it," Max replied immediately. I didn't for a minute believe that she would be doing the favor for _me_; but Amy made a good bargaining chip in this particular instance. Max would walk a mile over hot coals, another over broken glass, then dive naked into a swimming pool filled with razor blades if Amy asked her to.

For me? Not so much.

"I need to know what that team found. I know who I used to do business with, and who might have a reason for killing me. You don't," I told her.

"Look, we can handle this," Max insisted.

"No, you can't; and even if I thought you could, I don't for a second believe that the DEBS necessarily would," I countered. "From their point of view, either whoever's after us kills me, or I kill them. As far as you're concerned, it's win-win."

"You said you weren't down with the killing," Max accused.

"I'm not, but I'm pretty sure that the DEBS don't know that," I replied. "Last time I checked, they were still spouting that 'nobody has ever faced Lucy Diamond and lived to tell about it' bullshit." I let out a long, exasperated breath. "A few ATF agents get Ebola in Peru, and I get labeled as some kind of mass murderer just because they happened to be looking for me at the time," I muttered under my breath.

"Well, maybe we haven't got all the facts exactly…"

"You know what the _really_ annoying thing about that is?" I continued as if she hadn't spoken. "I wasn't even _in_ Peru. I was in Cuba. The team they sent to Cuba never even saw me. They lived, they went home and reported that I wasn't there. Meanwhile the team that goes where I'm _not_ gets themselves killed and somehow _I_ manage to get the blame for it."

"Um…"

"I mean, Christ, you're supposed to be an intelligence agency; frankly your track record…"

"Hey!" Max yelled. "You _were_ in the middle of asking me for a favor, right? 'Cause frankly, yelling at me isn't the best way of putting me in an amicable mood."

_Whoops._

"Sorry," I replied.

Next to me, I could feel Amy's whole body shaking as she bit down on her lower lip, trying not to burst out laughing. I fixed her with a glare before I spoke again.

"Just get me that information. You have a place where you can drop it safely?"

"Yeah," Max replied, "Amy knows the place."

"Thanks," I told her.

"I'm not doing it for you," Max told me, as if there were much doubt on that account.

Amy reached across and disconnected the phone. Then she looked down and kissed my forehead just below the hairline. "Honey, we _really_ need to teach you the value of diplomacy."

I looked up into her eyes and smiled, "hey, it worked, didn't it?"


	3. I hate Mondays

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff. It's the property of Angela Robinson and Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 3:**

Monday was a bad day.

I woke up with a sharp pain in my side because I'd slept on a spring that was sticking out of the mattress, and my day just got worse from there.

By the time we stepped out of the shower, the phone was already ringing. It was Max letting us know that the drop had been made. I tell you, that girl has exactly two moods: pissed off, and angry. That wouldn't be so much a problem if her moods weren't obnoxiously contagious.

So, yeah, I guess you could say that I wasn't exactly in the most receptive mood when Amy told me that she should go to the pickup alone.

"You're joking, right?" I asked her. "I mean, you gotta be kidding; 'cause the Amy I know wouldn't even consider the possibility that I'd let her go into something like this on her own."

"Lucy…"

"No," I countered, "that's not an option."

"Lucy, if I get nabbed, you're the only one who can break me out," she explained, calmly, "if they grab you, there's no way I'm going to be able to find you; and frankly, I don't want to watch myself fail."

Okay, I admit it, she had a point. I can, however, be a little on the pigheaded side. I'd like to think that it's one of my little flaws that Amy finds endearing; but I doubt it. "They'd have to catch me first," I replied, stubbornly. "A whole team of DEBS, the CIA and the FBI put together couldn't do that; and that's when I _didn't_ have you to back me up."

"Yeah, but you've been out of the game for four years," Amy pointed out.

Again, she had a point. See above, re: pigheaded. "I'm still better at my absolute worst than they are when they're at their best." I insisted, "case in point: your ex-boyfriend got his ass rather soundly kicked when I was a foot shorter, and about a gajillion pounds lighter than he is. And _he_ had a gun."

"Lucy, I just don't want to lose you," Amy tried a softer touch this time.

Around about now, I figure I was about two steps from growing a pink curly tail and rolling around in the mud. "Which is exactly why I'm going in with you. I'm not gonna leave you in the lurch."

We continued back and forth for a while. I can't remember everything that was said, but it consisted largely of Amy telling me that I was being an idiot (and let's face it, she was right) in the way that only Amy can; and me being the stubborn pigheaded woman that Amy fell in love with; although I somehow doubt that those two are the first traits that she fell for.

Turns out I'm a little more stubborn than her, though.

* * *

The drop, of all places, was at a Greyhound station. It was in one of the lockers in the back corner, a few aisles back where nobody ever went.

Amy managed to unlock the locker without too much trouble, and handed me a large manila envelope.

For the most part, it was photographs taken from the scene. The driver of the BMW we'd creamed was listed in critical condition, but they thought he was going to make it. The DEBS had got their hands on the two occupants of the Buick, and were now in the middle of questioning him. I always wondered what that kind of interrogation would entail. And it would be worth seeing to find out if they'd found out anything. If the DEBS weren't able to break him, that might, on its own, tell me something. I looked down at one of the photographs; a picture of the Buick's driver. I tried to hide my reaction, but Amy's been around me far too long.

"That picture mean anything to you?"

"Yeah," I replied, "it means that we're in a lot of trouble."

We started walking out of the station, "I could've told you that without looking at the file," Amy said.

"Yeah, but how often do you hear _me_ say it?" I asked, handing her the file.

"I take it you know these people?"

"Yeah, I know them they're…"

I never got to finish. With a loud metallic _clang_, I saw tiny pinpoints of light explode in my field of vision. I don't remember falling, but I remember being on the ground just before the world went black.

When the fog cleared, I was still lying on the ground. The manila envelope had been neatly placed right next to my left hand; it hadn't been dropped.

And Amy was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

I gotta hand it to Max. She's tough.

Sure, she went down with one punch, but I had to put just about everything I had behind that swing; and if I hadn't managed to take her by surprise, right as she stepped through the door to her bedroom, I probably wouldn't have even had that much.

Even so, she already had her hand on the revolver she had tucked into the waistband of her skirt by the time I was standing over her, my Beretta neatly aimed at the bridge of her nose. Her hand froze on the butt of the pistol, then slowly moved away from it. She can be borderline psychotic at times, but stupid, she's not.

"How'd you get in here?" She demanded.

Damn DEBS. So much faith in their security, so whenever someone manages to get through it, they ask the single most irrelevant question: how'd you get in? Frankly, my first question would be "why'd you get in?" But maybe that's just me. "I don't have time for twenty questions," I told her, "so I'll settle for one: where is she?"

"Who… Amy?" She faked confused pretty well.

I pressed the toe of my boot against her throat, keeping the pistol trained on her forehead. "Yes, Amy, dammit. Where is she?"

"Something's wrong with Amy?" At that, I hesitated a fraction of a second. I had to remind myself that she'd been trained to lie, cheat and deceive, but I had to admit that this one was pretty believable.

"You set us up," I replied, "now I dare you to lie to me."

"_I_ set you up? What do you mean?"

"Recognize this?" I threw the manila envelope down beside her. "That's the dossier you left at the drop-off point. Someone knew we were coming there; and hit us when we got there. I got the lump on my head to prove it." I pressed a little harder with my foot, Max started to struggle to breathe, "and _you're_ the only one who knew we were going there."

"Lucy, think about this," Max gasped, "if I was gonna set you up, why would I have them leave you behind? You, I'd set up in a cold minute, but do you honestly think I'd go after Amy instead?"

I let up the pressure a little. Admittedly, anything said at gunpoint is suspect, but the fact that I was here and Amy wasn't was a pretty strong argument in her favor.

I reached down and pulled the revolver out of her waistband; and tucked it into my inside jacket pocket. I took a step backwards, still training the pistol on her. "Sit down in the corner against the wall," I ordered, nodding to the wall, "sit on your hands, and bring your heels as close to your butt as you can. Feet flat on the floor." That put her as far as possible in the room from the Panic button that was installed next to the door, and sitting on her hands made it impossible for her to stand up before I shot her.

"What now?" she asked from her position on the floor.

"Now, we talk," I sat down in the chair next to the desk.

"What about?"

"The man who has her; his name is Ron Cockburn. Ronnie the Wrench; and trust me, you don't want to know how he got that nickname. I used to work with him whenever I had a job that required a little less finesse and a little more muscle," I told her.

"Thief?" She asked.

I shook my head, "thug," I replied. "But he's smart. Like, genius-smart. He's really good at finding the right kind of pressure to exert to make someone work for him; so if he's got Amy, it means he wants something from me; and trust me, he's thought it through to the last detail."

"You think he'll hurt her?"

I nodded, "he'll kill her and sleep very well the night that he does it; but he won't hurt her as long as he needs me. At the moment, I'm the only thing that's gonna keep her alive."

"And what do you need from me?" Max asked.

"Nothing. I trusted you once, I'm not going to make that mistake again," I replied.

"You honestly expect me to leave you to try to help my best friend while I just sit here?" Max demanded.

"No, I fully expect you to get your ass in the middle of it and get Amy killed," I countered. "If I need your help, you'll hear from me. But right now, either you double-crossed us, or someone in your organization did. Either way, I can't trust you." I turned toward the window and started to climb out.

"If anything happens to Amy," Max said, "I swear to you I will…"

I interrupted her, leaving the threat unvoiced, "if anything happens to Amy," I told her, "I'll let you."

* * *

Like I said, Monday was a bad day. When I made back to the motel room, it seemed so much _emptier_. It was the same sleazy, low-rent, roach-infested fleabag of a motel room that it had been that morning; but Amy had made that a little more bearable. The sheets had been changed that morning; so I can't tell you why I walked over to the bed and reached for it. Maybe I was trying to feel some kind of _Amyness_ that had been left behind.

"Lucinda, I must say I'm surprised."

I spun around at the sound of the voice, my own Beretta as well as Max's revolver coming to bear on the arrival.

He stepped out of the shadows near the bathroom. If it was possible to speak with surgical precision, he would've done it. You could practically hear him spelling out every single word as he spoke it. Every vowel and consonant was clearly distinguishable, "Four years ago, I would never have been able to sneak up on you like this. You're losing your edge."

I held the two handguns on him for a moment. He was walking casually into the room, his hands clasped behind his back. He wasn't even carrying a weapon, the arrogant bastard. His light brown hair was parted exactly as I remembered it. His muscular arms, visible even under his dark gray suit, were clasped exactly as I remembered them. Even his tie was the same tie he'd worn when I last saw him. I guess some things never change. "Hi Ronnie," I replied, holstering the weapons. I glanced over at the clock just in time to see it click from 11:59 pm to midnight.

So, yeah. Monday was a really crappy day.

But at least it was over.


	4. Back in the Habit

Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff. It's the property of Angela Robinson and Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 4:**

I really should have guessed that Ronnie was behind this back on the freeway. The black Buick really should have been the big hint. Ronnie loves big American cars. One of the problems with being out of the game for a few years: you forget these little things.

His chauffeur drives him around in a modified Lincoln Navigator. I guess he thought it was a little less conspicuous than a limo; and just as luxurious if you're willing to drop a mere few hundred thousand on it. One thing that Ronnie is not is flamboyant. He's a thug, to be sure, but he's no moron. He's incredibly good at making himself invisible, and surrounding himself with fanatically loyal people. I was pretty sure that the two occupants of the Buick Amy and I had taken out probably weren't going to talk.

That, actually, wasn't necessarily a bad thing, assuming that Max didn't spill her guts while I was trying to get us out of this mess. The longer it took the DEBS to get involved, the better; assuming they decided to get involved at all. Governments are funky that way: like in a completely ungoverned way.

Ronnie's a tough SOB, but finesse really isn't his strong point. When a job requires a little bit of a soft touch, he usually starts "recruiting."

Which, I was guessing, was why he needed me. And he'd picked just the right leverage; but then Ronnie was always good at picking just the right leverage.

He's more than a little arrogant. He didn't even bother disarming me as he led me out to his car waiting in the back alleyway; in spite of the fact that he _knew_ I was packing at least two pistols.

He also knew that I wasn't going to use them at least until I saw that Amy was okay. Just to be sure though, he almost certainly had one of his fanatically-loyal flunkies standing right next to her with orders to shoot her if he didn't check in.

Which meant that for the moment, I didn't really have much in the way of choices. I needed to wait and see what he would do; then try to out-think him.

Great plan, except that Ronnie's notoriously difficult to out-think.

Going straight can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

I was ushered into the back of a gray Lincoln Navigator. Yeah, Ronnie had spent a lot of cash on this little pseudo-limo. In my criminal mastermind days, I'd ridden in a limousine or two; not many, mind you, I preferred my '67 caddy; and none of them had anything on this car.

The remarkable thing was that from the outside, it looked like your everyday SUV. It was a limousine with camouflage. The rear windows were all tinted; and I imagined they were made out of bulletproof glass. Ronnie is usually cautious about things like that. I was also pretty confident that he'd had the engine worked on; and his driver was capable of maneuvering this huge SUV like a racecar if it came down to it.

Gone, sadly, were the days when my associates had completely incompetent henchmen.

The drive was silent. I spent most of it glaring at Ronnie as he looked passively back at me. He always did have a way of being annoyingly passive.

I tried to get some idea of where, exactly, we were going; but I lost track pretty quickly. Probably because the driver deliberately took several twists and turns specifically so that I couldn't trace the route.

That's Ronnie, always one step ahead of me.

He let me out outside an old factory. I didn't recognize it; but it was just the kind of place Ronnie would've chosen to hide out four years ago.

I guess old habits die hard.

"Now, Lucinda," Ronnie spoke for the first time in maybe a half hour, "I'll be taking those guns from you." Ronnie was still one of only two people who could still get away with calling me "Lucinda." Amy was the other.

Everything Ronnie did had a reason. He didn't take the guns before 'cause he knew I wouldn't use them as long as he had Amy. Once I saw her, he knew that with two guns a former criminal mastermind and an ex-DEB had a real chance to get free. For the moment, though, he was calling the shots.

From under my black denim jacket, I produced the offending firearms, and dropped them on the ground beside me. Ronnie produced a Glock .357, and pointed it at the center of my chest. Wow. He'd had that one pretty well-hidden. I hadn't even been able to tell he was packing; and I'm usually good at noticing these things. Someone picked the two firearms up, carrying them away.

"I want those back," I yelled after him as he scurried away.

"Now, Lucinda, if you'll be so kind, could you please put your hands on your head?" Bastard just had to be nice about holding me at gunpoint, didn't he?

I carefully laced my fingers behind my head. "You couldn't have shot me at the motel?"

"Lucinda," for the record, just because I'll let him call me _Lucinda_, doesn't mean I like it, "you are not stupid, so please don't act it." He nodded at someone behind me. I didn't bother to turn to look. "Check her," he ordered.

"I'm not carrying," I told him.

"How very kind of you to inform us," Ronnie replied, "but you'll forgive me if I don't necessarily believe you." He nodded again to the man behind me.

I felt a pair of hands clamp down on my right ankle then start walking their way up my calf to my thigh as he rather meticulously checked every inch of my body for some concealed firearm.

"Tell your lackey," I told Ronnie, "that if he doesn't watch his hands, he's likely to end up with a pair of stumps."

"Oh come, now," He replied, calm as ever, "you know you'd be doing exactly the same thing were you in my place."

"I've been straight —," I stopped, rethinking my choice of words, "— legal for four years. I don't think you're likely to find me in your shoes any time soon."

The man finished and stood behind me for a moment. My right elbow slammed backwards, catching him in the bridge of the nose. He dropped heavily to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Ronnie's gun rose a few inches to point at the center of my forehead. I put on my best innocent look. "Sorry," I said in my sweetest voice, "slipped."

"What have I done to earn this level of hostility from you?"

"Oh, should I start with kidnapping my girlfriend or holding me at gunpoint while one of your flunkies cops a feel?" I replied.

"Ah, yes. The DEB," Ronnie nodded slowly, "I must say I didn't see that one coming. You do realize that her organization has made it their personal mission to bring you in, don't you?"

"Cut the crap, Ronnie, where is she?" I asked, frustrated.

He shook his head, disapprovingly, "in my day, a lady wouldn't have spoken this way."

"Yeah, well, in your day, I wouldn't have been a lady. I'm gonna ask you again: where is she?"

"You are not in a position to make any threats, Lucinda." His voice was ominously threatening.

"You sure of that?"

"Yes," he said simply.

He would be a lot less annoying if he weren't right all the time.

"Bring her to the holding cell," he nodded to another of his lackeys. He seemed to have an endless supply of 'em. "And attend to Charles."

I heard a soft click and felt a gun press against the center of my back. "Forward," a man's voice growled from behind me. I decided that acting in any overtly hostile way was a pretty bad idea. This guy had a gun.

He directed me to a small metal door which he opened for me. I stepped into the darkness, hearing the door clanging shut behind me.

The room was pitch-black. It was as if the entire room had been sealed against any kind of light.

"H- hello?"

"Amy?"

"Lucy?"

"Yeah," I tried not to let the relief I felt show; then realized in the pitch blackness, not letting it show was pretty stupid. Chalk it up to years as a criminal mastermind. You get an image as a tough bitch that's hard to let go of.

"They got you too?"

"Yeah," I replied. "They got me." I squinted, trying to penetrate the darkness, no luck there. "I can't see shit, Amy, can you?"

"No, it's pitch black here. I've been here for hours and my eyes still haven't adjusted enough to see anything."

"Okay, Marco?"

I could almost hear Amy smile slightly, "Polo."

It took me a few tries, and running into the wall several times, to find my way over to Amy. Figures she'd be in the farthest corner from the door.

Finally, my toe bumped into something soft. I knelt down, grabbing a slender ankle. I followed the leg it was attached to all the way up to the body; then I felt a pair of slender, but powerful arms wrap around me.

Neither of us spoke a while. We just knelt in the pitch-blackness, holding each other as if we'd been apart for years, rather than just a few hours. In the end, though, the silence was finally broken by Amy.

"So… what's the situation?"

That was her DEB voice again. I'd missed it. "Not good," I replied, trying to sound equally businesslike, and probably failing rather miserably.

"Who is this guy?"

"An ex-associate of mine when I was a Badass criminal mastermind," I smiled again before I realized that she couldn't see it.

"So what's his beef with you?"

"Doesn't have one, as far as I know. The jobs he did with me made him a pretty rich man," I replied.

"So what's he doing?"

"Dunno yet," I replied, "but I'll bet that he has a job he wants me for. You're the leverage to get me to do it. So don't worry, as long as I'm working for him, you're safe."

"And after, he just lets us go?"

I winced, "I doubt it. Odds are that we're both dead once this job is done."

"Great friends you got there," Amy commented wryly.

"I never said he was a friend," I defended myself, "just that I worked with him. Besides, you don't see me heckling you about the fact that you worked with a kleptomaniac, a sex addict and a borderline sociopath, do you?"

"Touché," Amy admitted. "Any chance that the DEBS could help us on this one?"

"The DEBS? They couldn't find their plaid-skirted asses with both hands and a flashlight," I winced, "no offence."

"None taken," she replied.

"At any rate, I think we're pretty much on our own here; so we're gonna have to be really careful how we do this."

"How are we gonna do this?"

I shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest."

I don't know exactly how long we were in there. An hour, maybe. I couldn't tell. There wasn't enough light for me to read the face of my watch. Neither of us really said much. I guess we didn't have much to say. We both knew how bleak the situation was. We were alive, we were together; for the moment, that was going to have to be enough. It was dead silent in the tiny room, so we both jumped when the door swung open with a metallic groan, throwing harsh light into the room.

The man silhouetted in the doorway spoke: "boss wants to see you."

I was still shielding my eyes when Amy and I stepped out of the room. Ronnie was waiting.

I took a deep breath. I'd tried _so hard_ to get away from this life. I'd dumped just about everything I'd ever stolen; gave it all back. I'd given up that life and moved to Barcelona to rent sailboats to tourists. Now not only was I being dragged back into it; but I was dragging Amy back into it with me.

Karma's a bitch sometimes.

I looked up at Ronnie. He looked back at me completely calmly.

_I hate this, I hate this, I hate this._

"Okay Ronnie, you win."


	5. Staging Areas

I don't own any of this; it is the property of Sony Pictures and the brain child of Angela Robinson.

**Chapter 5:**

"Okay, Ronnie, let's make something clear right off the bat. If whatever you have planned will get anyone hurt, you might as well shoot me now, 'cause I won't do it," I told him.

"My dear, I'm not a monster," Ronnie replied. It was a transparent lie, but I let it pass. "This is a simple extraction. Something you'll find is right up your alley," he continued.

"What's the grab?"

"The _Star of Antarctica_ is the third largest cut blue diamond in existence," Ronnie began. "And two weeks from now, for four days; it will be held in the vault in US customs before it goes on display. And you are going to acquire it before it is displayed. In and out, nobody gets hurt. In fact, this needs to be done in such a way that nobody even knows that it's gone."

"Nobody knows that it's gone? Come on, Ronnie, you really think they're not going to notice that their vault is lighter by about 40 karats of blue diamond?" I asked, incredulously.

"What's the forgery?" Amy asked. "Lab diamond, colored glass, what?"

Ronnie nodded, appreciatively, "blue moissanite." He turned to me, "she's a smart one," he tilted his head in Amy's direction, "what's she doing with you?"

"You think that a fake is going to fool them?" I asked.

"It won't fool any skilled jeweler; which is why we need to steal it before it is displayed; but after it arrives on American soil. It will be assessed upon arrival; then locked in the vault until the display," Ronnie replied, "so we will need to steal it from the Customs house."

I nodded, "so the fake is displayed for, what, two weeks?"

Ronnie smiled, "now you move to the head of the class. If all goes well, nobody will even know it was stolen until it arrives at the next destination on its tour."

"So it looks like you got this all figured out, so why do you need us?" I countered.

"You'd be hard pressed to find a nuclear missile silo with as high security as the US customs vault," Ronnie replied. "Security guards, cameras, laser grids, keycards and keypads. Not to mention a vault door with a nine-digit passcode."

"A billion possible combinations," I shook my head. "How many times are you allowed to screw it up?"

"Four," Ronnie replied, "before the system goes into complete lockdown, and the company which installed it has to come and reset it, and set a new password."

"I take it getting our hands on the internals is impossible?" I asked.

Ronnie nodded, "without burning a hole in the outer door of the vault, yes."

"So you want us to get into a highly-monitored building; dodge guards that walk by every, what, forty-five minutes?"

Ronnie shook his head, "approximately twenty."

"Twenty minutes?" I asked, my eyes widening slightly, "okay, twenty it is; get into a room which requires a key card and a passcode to enter, past a grid of laser beams, open an unopenable vault, steal one of the most recognizable diamonds in the world, and get away without anybody noticing?"

"Is that a problem?" He asked.

"It's a challenge," I nodded.

"You have two weeks to prepare. Full planning and execution are up to you. The DEB will remain here under my protection," Ronnie told me.

"The DEB has a name," Amy announced indignantly.

"It can't be done," I told him. "Nobody's ever succeeded in breaking into a customs vault."

"Which is why I need you," Ronnie replied. "Diamond theft is your specialty."

"It's not about the diamond," I told him, "you're talking about a _US customs vault_," I emphasized, "the security is designed to be impenetrable. The guards are notoriously hard to buy off, and even if they weren't, the electronic security is damn near impossible to penetrate on its own."

"You will simply have to get past 'it's impossible' and find your way to 'how we do this,' because it will happen," Ronnie's tone of voice left no room for negotiation. "What do you need?"

"I need blueprints of the building, and tech readouts of the vault," I told him, "plus anything you have on the security systems, card readers, key pads, and closed-circuit cameras."

"Done," he replied.

"And I need Scud," I continued.

"We'll get him."

"Amy and I will do the snatch, Scud will work cover from outside."

Ronnie shook his head, "no way. I'm going in with you."

"Fine," I shrugged noncommittally. I figured he'd turn that one down, but it was worth a try. "Just stay out of the way. I won't be held responsible for you screwing up the job."

"Wait a minute," Amy spoke again, "what would you have done if we hadn't come to LA? Stealing this diamond would've been a little on the hard side if we'd been in Spain when it was here."

"I knew you would be here," he said simply.

My eyes narrowed to slits as I glared at him, "you insufferable bastard." I whispered.

Amy looked over at me, "what?"

Ronnie tilted his head slightly. "Your arrival in Los Angeles was not a coincidence," he said simply.

"What?" Amy asked, clearly not understanding.

"He was playing us from day one. The gallery, the teaching position at UCLA," continued glaring at him, "none of it was real, was it?"

Ronnie nodded slowly.

"Then I also want to be reimbursed for two tickets from Barcelona to LA," I told him, not even bothering to hide the hatred in my voice, "I kept the receipts."

"Oh, I assure you, you will be adequately cared for," Ronnie replied, "_after_ the job is done."

I glared at him again: _I'll bet._ I thought.

-x-

"11:20 pm. Guard A leaves post to make one round of level six," I announced. "Guard B remains at post."

"This guy's a human stopwatch," Amy announced from the passenger seat of the black Buick Ronnie had given us, "every twenty minutes on the nose. Not twenty-one, not nineteen. He leaves at twenty minutes after every hour, spends ten doing the rounds, comes back to the post at half-past, then leaves again at ten to the hour and comes back on the hour. Then he starts over again."

"And every time, to level six. That's our vault," I replied. "Guess there's nothing worth breaking into on any of the other floors."

"It's probably mostly personal offices. Anything really valuable, I guess they put in the vault," Amy reasoned.

"Makes sense," I put the binoculars to my eyes again, "at any rate, I think that this security guard is the one break we're going to get here. He's practically OCD on his rounds."

Amy looked at me for a moment, her eyes narrowing as they scanned over my profile.

"What?" I asked, looking back at her.

"You're enjoying this," she accused me.

"I am not," I insisted.

Amy raised an eyebrow, "Lucy, I'm the perfect liar here. You may be a super criminal, but when it comes to lying, you're a rank amateur."

I tried to find a way to talk my way out of this one, but the bottom line is that she was right. "Amy, you knew that I loved this life when we got together."

"I know," Amy replied, "it's just weird, you know."

"Amy, you're a spy who was trying to catch a criminal, I'm the criminal you were trying to catch. I think weird kinda comes with the territory," I told her.

"It's not that. It's just weird… I mean, seeing you doing something you loved," she paused, looking intensely into my eyes, "before you loved me."

I gotta admit, I almost started laughing at that one, but something told me that was the wrong response, "wait a second," I said, "you think I'm cheating on you… with a diamond heist?"

Amy shared my smile, "okay, yeah, it sounds a little crazy when you put it that way."

"No, actually, it sounds a lot crazy," I replied, "and I've known people to say some pretty crazy things."

"I mean, it's just that you gave up something you loved to be with me, I guess seeing you doing it now makes me wonder if you ever regret it," Amy explained.

"Regret?" I looked over her and smiled, "not even a little. But I do miss it on occasion."

"But if you love this so much…"

"Hey, it was between something I love, and something I love _more_," I told her, "I'd do it again in a heartbeat." I grinned mischeviously, "besides, what makes you think I _don't_ love overcharging tourists to rent sailboats? I mean, hell, the amount I charge them is _practically_ robbery."

Amy laughed.

"Being a thief was something that made my life a little more fun; but it was never something that made my life worth living." I looked over at her, "that's your job."

-x-

When we got back to the factory, I practically threw myself into Scud's arms. I hadn't seen him in a little while, and I guessed that his reunion with Ronnie hadn't been the friendliest.

"Lucy, what's going on here?" Scud asked.

I tried not to look too relieved at seeing him again. I failed pretty miserably. "I need your help on this one," I told him.

"You got it," he told me without hesitation.

"How's Janet?" Amy asked.

"She's good. She's really good," Scud replied. "She misses you."

"She still have trouble finding her gun in the morning?" Amy asked.

"Well, you know how absent-minded she can be," Scud offered a one-sided grin.

"But, God, she loves that Glock .357," Amy mirrored his smile. "She'd be lost if she ever lost it. I'll never forget the time that she accidentally sent it to the basement with the laundry."

"She hasn't done that in a while," Scud replied. Then he turned to me, "so what are we doing?"

I gave him a wry grin, "the impossible."

-x-

"Okay, we're dealing with three levels of security," I started. I looked at the three people standing around the table. "First, we need to get into the restricted area around the vault. That requires a keycard and access code. The security guard has both."

"I can clone a card," Scud told me, "but without the guard's access code, we won't be able to get in anywhere."

"One bridge at a time," I told him. "Next step is opening the cage around the vault. This is actually just a mechanical lock. Supposed to be unpickable. I'm going to pick it." I told them, "here's where things start to get tricky."

"_This_ is where it gets tricky?" Amy's eyes widened.

I nodded. "The cage is an eight by eight foot room with a series of horizontal laser beams. The beams are nine inches apart starting nine inches above the ground and going all the way to the ceiling. They start at the cage door and stop about two feet before the vault door. The only reason why they don't go all the way too the door is that it needs about two feet of clearance for the lock console."

"But wouldn't opening the vault door screw it up?" Scud asked

"If you opened it all the way, yeah. But there's just enough space that you can open it, leaving about eight inches to squeeze in, and still have a couple of inches before the door breaks one of the beams." I replied.

"Lucy, we're talking _inches_ here. Nine inches, and you break a beam just trying to get to the vault door. Eight inches, and you break a beam trying to open it," Scud listed off the numbers. "Can you squeeze into a space that small?"

"No," I shook my head, "but Amy can."

"What's next?" Amy asked.

"Next, we have to get into the vault itself," I told her. "This is the hard part. The vault door is a Tippmann-Phibs combination time-lock; possibly the most complicated vault door ever devised. Any one of three things will set it off: putting in the wrong combination, trying to hotwire it, or trying to open it at the wrong time. We set this thing off, and we're hooped. The vault locks down, and there's no way we're getting in."

"Is now a good time to point out that we're going to be trying to break into the thing without a combination, in the middle of the night?" Scud asked.

"Now would be an extremely bad time to mention that," I replied.

Ronnie looked up at me, "so what's the plan?"

I clenched my jaw, "I have absolutely no idea."


	6. Alarms

I don't own any of this; it is the property of Sony Pictures and the brain child of Angela Robinson.

**Chapter 6:**

In frustration, I flung my reading glasses down on the drafting table. I dropped my elbows onto the table, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes.

"Lucy," Amy's voice called over from the tiny cot set up in the corner of the room. Just hearing it made me relax a little.

"This is impossible," I muttered. "I can get us into the building. I can even get us to the cage, maybe. I can even get you to the door of the vault, but all that is pointless if I can't open the damn thing." I let out a long breath, "they may well have made a vault here that's impossible to break into."

"I've read your file," Amy pointed out, "you've never failed in a heist before."

"I've never tried to steal from a customs vault. There's a reason why nobody's pulled it off before," I replied. "I don't know. Maybe if I had a year to get ready; six months, maybe; I might be able to come up with something. But two weeks?"

"You're not going to accomplish anything if you're tiring yourself out," Amy told me. She'd be a great mother someday. "Why don't you go home and get some sleep?"

"And leave you alone with him? You're seriously delusional if you think that's gonna happen," I replied.

"Then come here," she replied, "there's room on the cot."

I gotta admit that was a pretty tempting offer. Too tempting, it turns out. I wasn't accomplishing much at the drafting table anyway.

The cot was cramped with both of us on it, but it was comfortable enough. The company definitely made it a lot more comfortable.

Amy snuggled close to me, I could feel her breathing against the back of my neck. I closed my eyes, almost forgetting that a monster was probably planning on killing both of us in the next two weeks.

"So, tell me about this problem," Amy started.

I let out an exasperated breath. "This is the perfect safe. You the only way in is to know the passcode. You try to cut the power, and it goes into lockdown. You try to bypass the keypad, and it goes into lockdown. Everything I've tried will set it off, and I'm running out of ideas."

"How about when it goes off by accident? I mean, there must be some way of resetting it, right?" Amy asked.

I nodded, "yeah, but not by us. Tippmann sends a technician who resets the system and sets a completely new passcode."

"So how does _he_ do it?"

I shook my head, "I already thought of that. You need their equipment to do it, and they keep it under possibly even more strict security than the vault we're trying to break into."

"A vault?"

I shook my head, "nope, even better. Nobody knows where they are. All the necessary electronics to reset the system are kept at a secret location known to exactly two people. And there's no way we can reach them in time."

"Pretty tough nut to crack," Amy commented.

"Yeah," I replied. I tried to twist my head to see her, but I could only see some of her blond hair out of the corner of my eye, "just so you know, I'm sorry I got you into this."

"You didn't get me into this," she insisted. "I knew what I was getting into the minute I tried to arrest you."

"I just wish I knew how I was gonna get us _out_ of this," I added.

"Tell you what," I she replied, "you pull that off, and I'm yours forever."

"Do I get anything if I get us halfway out of this?"

"Half of forever work for you?"

I smiled, "I can live with that."

"So, all you have to do is get us into the vault, right?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"Well, maybe it's like the SAT."

I frowned, "okay, need just a little more to make that connection."

"You know, Student Aptitude Test. Kids write it just before they go away to univ—," Amy began.

"I know what the SAT is. What does it have to do with this?" I interrupted.

"Well, when you get a question wrong, it's usually because you made an assumption that wasn't actually written in the question," Amy explained, "it's usually subconscious. So what have you assumed?"

"Not much," I said, wryly, "just that the vault _can_ be opened. Not much more than that. I mean, we want to open it without setting it off. There isn't much room for assumption there."

"Okay, then try this: how do you get the code? Who has it?" Amy pressed.

"One man, at customs. Nobody else has access to the vault."

"How about the man at Tippmann? Can he be bought?" Amy asked.

"Not a chance. If someone got the code, they'd know immediately who gave it to them, and he'd be facing felony charges. That'll make him awfully hard to buy."

"So what happens when he changes the code?" Amy asked.

"He hands the appropriate person a piece of paper with the code written on it; who memorizes it and immediately shreds it while the technician watches," I told her. "The security is airtight. Besides which, the odds of the technician remembering a 9-digit code of the thousands of clients that Tippmann has are pretty slim. And on top of that, he'd have to set off the alarm which is something that doesn't happen very…" I stopped. It couldn't be that simple, could it?

I leapt up from the bed, rushing over to the drafting table.

"What is it?" Amy asked.

I spun around to face her, "Amy, I could kiss you."

"Well, if you absolutely must…" Amy gave me a one-sided smile. I rushed forward, taking her head in my hands and kissing her deeply. "You're a genius," I said simply.

"I'm a genius?" Amy shook her head in her adorably clueless way. "What are you talking about?"

I ran to the door, pounding on the hard metal, "let us out!" I yelled.

A small observation slot slid opened to show a very angry pair of eyes, "Ronnie says that you can't leave."

"Tell Ronnie I know how we're going to open the vault," I countered. "Does he want to know now, or should I wait until he wakes up?"

-x-

I spread out the technical plans of the vault on the table and looked at the three very tired faces looking back at me.

"Okay, here's the vault. We can't fool the security system, so we're going to have to get into it relatively honestly. We're going to get the code." I announced.

"How?" Scud asked. "We can't pump the guy at customs for information; the technician at Tippmann won't know or won't tell, and there's no record of the passcode."

"Who picks up the customs office's confidential stuff?" I asked Scud, "the stuff they shred."

"Um, Howlet Confidentials," Scud answered.

"When's their next scheduled pickup?"

"Every Friday at eleven… three days from now," Scud checked his notes.

I turned to Ronnie, "I need one of their uniforms."

"I can do that," Ronnie replied, "but I don't understand, what do we want with their shredded documents?"

"We don't. We just want one of them, the vault's passcode," I told them, "Scud, if I give you two weeks to put it back together, can you do it?"

"Easily," Scud replied, "but the last time they changed the passcode was eight months ago, it's long gone."

"Tell me about the time lock," I told him, "how does the vault know what time it is?"

"It's plugged into the power grid. The power oscillates at a frequency of 120 cycles per second," Scud rattled off, "it's like the ticking of a clock. So if the power's cut, the safe immediately knows and goes into lockdown. It uses the power grid's own natural frequency to figure out what time it is."

"What if we could speed up the ticking?" I asked. "Could you design something that could do that?"

Scud frowned, "I guess if we had a frequency oscillator which set the frequency to something we decided on, at exactly the same RMS voltage as the input signal, yeah, I think we could do it. But that still doesn't get us the passcode."

"How much time do you need?" I asked.

"You can buy the parts you need at Radio Shack," He replied, "and a few hours to assemble them. But Lucy…"

"Fine, have it ready for tomorrow night at midnight. We're going in," I announced.

Ronnie looked at me, "Lucinda, we're after the diamond, and it won't be there for another two weeks."

I shook my head, putting on my best disappointed face, "too short-sighted, Ronnie. That was always your problem. I'm not going after the diamond. Actually, I don't even plan on taking anything from the vault."

"Then… why?" Amy asked.

I smiled, "I'm gonna set it off."


	7. Normal

I don't own this. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

* * *

**Chapter 7:**

"Okay," I turned around in the front passenger seat of the car to face the two people sitting in the back seat, "today, we're after two things, one, we need to tap into the time-lock on the vault. I'll do that. Second, we need to get to the vault and try to open it. Amy, that's you. Scud, your job is to tap into the closed-circuit feed of the sixth floor. We need a full thirty minutes from the time the guard steps off the elevator to the next time he steps off of it." I turned to Ronnie, in the driver's seat, "Ronnie, you're just along for the ride, so don't get us caught." I turned back to Scud. "Scud, where do you have to be to tap into the feed?"

"Basement's best. Fortunately, the tap for the feed is relatively unsecured. I can tap in pretty much anywhere," Scud told me.

I smiled, "that and you're afraid of heights."

Scud's features scrunched, "you know, Luce, you're really putting a damper on my manly image."

"What manly image?" I countered. Scud responded with an agonized expression. I turned to Ronnie again, "you can be in the basement with Scud, or in the elevator shaft with me. Pick one, because I'm not going to be running around the building trying to find you."

"Shaft," he replied immediately.

"Appropriate," I muttered, then turned to Scud again, "you stay in radio contact. I'll need you to talk me through tapping into the power system." I took a deep breath. It had been a _long_ time since I'd had to mentally prepare myself for B & E. Frankly, my thinking over the last four years had been tending more towards the B & B end of the spectrum. I guess we were about to find out if I still had it.

-x-

Getting into the building was actually the easy part. It usually is, especially for public buildings. I guess they're more worried about what people do once they get into the building than they are about people actually _getting_ in. So the alarm on the basement window was a relatively simple breaker-system. If you open the window, a circuit is broken, and the alarm goes off. If you know what you're doing, it's actually pretty easy to bypass. I'd done it more times than I cared to keep track of, or maybe I didn't want to keep track of them.

Of course, getting out of the basement was where things got a little trickier. Every stairwell was rigged with cameras and motion sensors. Every elevator had a camera.

Well, the _inside_ of every elevator, anyway.

It was dark inside, but the moonlight shafting in through the window we'd just come through was providing just enough light for us to see each other. I looked over at Amy, "how much time 'till the guard's next trip upstairs?"

"Twelve minutes," Amy replied, looking down at her watch.

I looked over her with a slight smile, "how do you like being on this side of the law for a change?"

"Not my thing," she admitted with a tilt of her head, "but I can see how it could be."

"Ronnie, you're with us, Scud, you get on tapping the closed-circuit grid," I ordered. "We've got an elevator to catch," I grabbed Amy's elbow and together the four of us walked deeper into the basement.

-x-

The elevator didn't actually go into the basement, but there was a small maintenance crawlspace that the Ronnie, Amy and I could just barely crouch in without the elevator crushing us. Elevators arrive at a floor based upon which car is closest. So at night when the building was empty, the odds were that the security guard would just be riding the same car up and down all night. That made our lives a lot easier, since we had two of them to choose from. The one we wanted was already on the ground floor.

"Check your harness," I told Amy, "I'm not planning on losing you on this one." I quickly checked her climbing harness. I turned to Ronnie, "you can take a six-story freefall if you want to." I opened the com, "Scud? Where are you with that camera feed?" The throat microphone I was wearing allowed me to subvocalize anything I said, so that nobody who wasn't listening in on our comline would be able to hear me. Sadly, Ronnie was among the people who were. That made plotting behind his back a lot harder.

"Ready to record," came Scud's reply, slightly distorted, through the earphone I had slotted in my ear.

"You comfortable?" I asked.

"Yeah, I got everything here I need," Scud replied.

"Okay, let us know when the guard's on the move, and be ready to record when I tell you," I told him.

The wait was actually pretty short. We had plenty of time to clip a pair of carabiners onto the bottom of the elevator and wait for the security guard to come by on his clockwork rounds. I was about to remind Amy to make sure she locked the gates of the two 'biners, and to make sure that the gates were on opposite sides of the metal bars that criss-crossed the bottom of the elevator car, but noticed that she'd already done both. I had to silently remind myself that she _had_ done this kind of thing before. Bennie hadn't, so with a little luck, he'd screw up. No such luck, unfortunately. I glanced over at his setup, and he was as firmly tied in as Amy and I were.

It was a little more cramped for me. I had a small duffel bag hanging off the back of my harness; it held, hopefully, everything we were going to need for this trip.

The secret to stealing just about anything is to be just a little crazier than the person who designed the system to keep you out. Whoever built this had put cameras inside the elevator, but not the outside; they'd put cameras in the stairwell, but not the elevator shaft. I guess the reasoning is that you had to be a little bit crazy to what we were about to do. The elevator moving up and down made motion sensors impossible.

The security guard was going to be nice enough to give us a ride up to the sixth floor. I'd played with the idea of tapping into the elevator control and sending it up ourselves, but I'd finally vetoed that on the grounds that the guards could notice the elevator moving up and down without anyone inside. So the most reasonable answer was to let it go up and down _with_ someone inside. In this case, the security guard.

"He's in the box," I heard Scud announce. I could just barely hear the soft thud of the security guard's boots on the floor of the elevator a few inches above the top of my head.

"Yeah, I can hear him," I told him.

"Just let me know when to start recording," Scud said.

I was about to respond when with a loud, metallic groan, the elevator began to lurch upwards. I never really appreciated the soundproofing they have in elevators until that moment. In the long, narrow shaft, the machinery was _loud_. And it echoed like crazy.

I didn't have much in the way of time to focus on that, though, as the three of us were jerked off of the ground and lifted effortlessly into the air.

Now that, I've gotta say was a little off-putting. A big metal box above you, and a slab of concrete below you getting farther and farther away by the second. Heights, I'm usually okay with, as long as I have something underneath me. As long as I'm actually standing on something, I'm fine. But just hanging there… ugh. It gave me shivers.

I glanced over at Amy. She looked just fine; which meant that she was either hiding it really well, or she was used to this kind of thing.

I felt the elevator slow and come to a stop "start recording," I told Scud. I heard him acknowledge it.

Above me, I heard the elevator door open and the guard leave the car. The elevator hung in space, and we hung underneath it. "Okay, top floor, everybody off," I told them, trying to hide my own nervousness underneath a cavalier attitude.

Huge girders ran between the two elevators, providing strength to the structure. It also provided us with a place we could sit tight without fear of being detected. It wasn't completely flush with the elevator car, but there wasn't exactly a lot of room to stretch ourselves out. It would be a little on the cramped side for the next few hours.

I carefully swung myself over to one of the girders, and clipped a carabiner onto it. That way, even if I slipped, I'd still be okay. I then removed the 'biners from the bottom of the elevator. The I-beam I was standing on was narrow, only about eight inches wide. There was enough room to sit comfortably, but only just.

In a moment, Amy was sitting right next to me. "You okay?" She asked me.

"Yeah," I frowned, "mostly," I added as I looked up at Ronnie, perched on one of the diagonal I-beams just above us. I rolled my eyes, secretly wishing that both carbiners he'd clipped to the I-beam would fail, right at the moment he'd slip; dropping him a good 200 feet straight down. Unfortunately, the odds of that actually happening were pretty remote. Dammit.

"Okay," I took a moment to center myself. I'd given up this life four years ago, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been tempted in that time. I'd walk by a jewelry store and I'd practically be casing the joint. Go to an art museum, and I'd ask myself what could be stolen and how. I guess stealing is the one thing I've ever been good at; and no matter what your reasons, it can be hard to give that up. I guess Amy was more than a little right when she said that it was hard watching me do something I loved. It had to be even harder when that something happened to be illegal.

"Okay," Scud began, "on the north wall, you should see a ventilation duct. That's where you're headed.

"The vents? You're kidding me," I replied. "That's _such_ a movie cliché."

"Electrical lines run alongside it," Scud explained, "so I'm sorry if it injures your criminal ego, but that's just the way it works."

"What do I need?" I asked.

"The oscillator, a laser stripper, some wire cutters, and the BinA," Scud listed.

"Check, check, check and check," I carefully unscrewed the wire grid from the front of the ventilation duct and handed it over to Amy. "Don't drop this," I told her. Then I dug around in the duffel bag. The oscillator was a pretty nondescript black box with four colored wires hanging out of it. I hoped that meant that it would be easy for me to rig it. I slid it into the vent, then dug around further. The laser stripper was about the size of a pen and I clipped it into the neck of my black shirt. That would let me strip a hot wire without electrocuting myself. Wire cutters: self-explanatory. And finally, I dropped a pair of ketchup bottles in the vent.

"You're gonna tap into this thing using ketchup?" Amy asked.

"Oh, come on, Amy, a girl's gotta have a couple of secrets," I flashed her another dazzling grin. I unclipped the duffel bag from my harness and clipped it onto hers. "Hang onto this," I said, "we'll be needing it later.

-x-

When I gave up this life of crime, one of the things I _didn't_ miss was crawling around in ventilation ducts. You'd be surprised how often a heist requires it.

I'm not a big person by anyone's measure, but I found those ducts to be cramped. It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic, or that would put a huge damper on this heist right there. The vent wasn't even wide enough for me to put my arms by my side. They had to be stretched out in front of me just so that I could fit in.

"Okay, tell me where to burn," I told Scud.

"About five yards in, there's an intersection to the right; take it and go another few yards," Scud told me.

Actually taking that intersection was more difficult than it sounds in such a tight space. I'm not entirely certain my body was meant to bend in that shape, and I grunted with the effort.

"You okay?" Scud asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, why?" I replied.

"I dunno, you just sound like you're constipated or something," Scud told me.

"It's just been a while since I've been in the game," I told him. "What's next?"

"Okay, you want to cut a square, about eight inches, in the bottom of the duct," Scud told me.

If there's such thing as a universal solvent, Scud had figured it out. Okay, that's a bit of an overstatement, maybe. Scud had worked out an acid that could eat through just about anything. We'd almost had to abandon our lair when it ate through the container he was preparing it in. Being the bright guy that he is, he'd figured out how to make the stuff useful. He divided it into two different chemicals. Either one was completely tame on its own. You could bathe in it without any problems (Scud had done it to prove it to me); but when you mix them together, they'll burn through just about anything. On the occasions when we were less worried about making the heist quiet, we'd used it to burn through the lock on a safe. Worked beautifully, worked silently, and left no trace of anything any forensics experts could identify.

With one of the two ketchup bottles, I sprayed a roughly square shape in the floor of the ventilation duct, then followed exactly the same path with the other one. I backed off a few feet, covering my nose with my glove. This stuff could burn through just about anything, but couldn't Scud have made it _smell_ a little nicer?

I waited about thirty seconds, then lifted the cut section free of the rest of the duct, careful not to touch the edges. They were probably safe, since the acid had already reacted; but I figured better safe than sorry.

"Okay, I'm in," I said, "what now?"

Actually, with Scud guiding me through it, wiring the system was a lot easier than I'd expected. I'm not exactly an electronics genius by any stretch of the imagination, but Scud was. In a lot of ways, we're the perfect team. He made my whole evil empire work, back when I had one. He was the perfect complement to me. He could figure out the techno-stuff and the human resources, I took care of the planning and implementation.

"Okay, is that it?" I asked when we finished.

"Yeah, that's everything," Scud told me. "In about thirty seconds, the safe will be convinced that it's 8:00 am, then time will stand still for it until it actually _is_ 8:00 am."

"Where's our guard?" I asked.

"He just took the elevator back down," Scud replied.

"Okay, keep recording. We're going to need all twenty minutes of footage of nothing happening," I told him.

"Confirm that," Scud replied.

I gotta admit I loved and hated doing this. I loved being back in a setting that seemed so familiar. Crime is easy, once you get the hang of it, and I guess the fact that Ronnie went to all this trouble to recruit me showed that I was still one of the best out there. At the same time, I hated it _because_ it was so familiar. This wasn't who I was anymore. I was Lucinda Reynolds. I rented sailboats to tourists and was a freelance model for one Amy Bradshaw; artiste extraordinaire.

I mean, my life was pretty weird before I got out of the crime business, but the thing is, after I met Amy, I _wanted_ normal. I wanted to go to the movies and hold hands. I wanted our fingertips to "accidentally" touch when we both reached for the popcorn at the same time. I _wanted_ long walks on the Riviera and late nights watching the stars drift from one horizon to the other. I wanted late nights staying up watching bad movies on TV, and early mornings with eggs on the griddle. I _wanted_ to walk into a store and actually _buy_ something, rather than stealing it after closing. I wanted all those things that couples do to annoy their single friends. I wanted the pet names, the shared smiles, the soft touches and the inside jokes. I wanted it all.

I wanted normal; and I guess some part of me figured that maybe, just maybe that wasn't too much for someone like me to ask for.

"Um, Lucy?" Amy's voice dragged me out of my reverie, "you can come out now."

"Yeah, I'm coming," I replied. That's part of the reason why I hated working in ventilation ducts. With nothing around to distract you, your mind drifts; and I have a pretty active mind.

I slid backwards back out of the ventilation duct, and strapped myself back into the I-beam the three of us were perched on.

"You okay?" Amy asked as I screwed the grate back over the opening.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I answered. A little too quickly, it turns out.

"Lucy…"

"Amy, we're in the middle of doing the one thing I promised you I'd never do," I explained, letting out a long, aggravated breath, "so you'll excuse me a little if I seem a bit on edge."

"Hey, I get it, okay?" The thing is, she actually _did_ get it. Not many people would have. Scud probably wouldn't. Ronnie definitely wouldn't. Even Ashley, my ex-; the one who left me so screwed up I had to run to Reykjavik to get un-screwed-up; she probably wouldn't have got it either.

"Sorry," I muttered, not really knowing what else to say.

"Hey," she leaned in closer, "we'll get through this, okay?"

I tried to look confident as I nodded my agreement.

"So what's next?" She asked.

"Now, we wait."


	8. Phase One

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 8:**

I was pretty quiet for the next twenty minutes while we waited for the guard to return. Uncharacteristically quiet, as Amy put it around about minute number nine. Ronnie didn't say anything. He was perched on his little I-beam, his dark eyes looking down on us as we sat in mid air, waiting. I couldn't help but feel like he was a coiled cobra waiting for that perfect moment to strike at his prey.

Stealing something is easy. Anyone can steal something, really. Smash a window, grab whatever you're after, run like hell. Let's face it, it doesn't require much in the way of creativity to actually steal something.

Not getting caught is the hard part. Your standard smash-and-grab, you'll be lucky to make it home before you get nabbed. But in a _real_ theft; one with a little artistry, some sophistication, and a little finesse; far more planning goes into the getaway than the theft itself.

That's where most thefts fail. I mean, technically, I could probably have walked all the way up to the vault right then and there. I would've had to smash my way through the door, which would've set off every alarm in the building, but I could've probably made it to the vault; opened it, and probably got his Ronnie's diamond for him.

Of course, that would leave me with a big hole in the vault door, my face in every newspaper on the west coast, and probably up shit creek without a proverbial paddle.

Which is why I was the best at what I did. Theft is a combination of patience and intelligence. You fail on one, you fail on both. Ronnie wasn't dumb, by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a lousy thief. He was too impulsive, too impatient. Amy, on the other hand, would've made an absolutely spectacular thief, if she ever decided to cross over to the lawless side of the street.

That was another thing that kinda annoyed me about the boogieman that the DEBS had turned me into. I had never carried a gun on a heist in my life. The way I saw it; if you needed a gun, you were doing something wrong. Sure, I carried my trusty Beretta when I was walking down the street; not so much at the moment, since Ronnie had it locked up in his safe; but once I got into the building, it was guns-free all the way. And somehow, if you believed the DEBS, I'd managed to kill, maim or shoot every single security guard that had ever stumbled on me. Hell, half the heists that they'd credited me with weren't even mine; and at least half of those were insurance scams. They'd worked, largely because I hadn't exactly been in a position to come forward to protest my innocence. I guess what annoyed me more was the fact that I _didn't_ get any credit for a lot of the things I _did_ steal, largely because the body count wasn't high enough.

Okay, yeah, I'm a little bitter.

"He's in the elevator," Scud's voice sounded again over the earphones.

I leaned over slightly to see the elevator car begin rising up from the ground floor. "Copy that," I replied, "get ready to play back his last trip around the sixth floor." With a little luck, we could overlay the guard's previous, uninterrupted trip around the floor relatively well-synchronized with his current trip around the top floor. Close enough, at any rate, that the guard still at the station on the ground wouldn't notice anything. This guard's obsessive-compulsive nature was really gonna play in our favor. That was good, because the vault room was a glass-fronted office. Once the guard came back, we had absolutely nowhere to hide.

"Okay," I said as the elevator drew to a halt, uncomfortably close to my right arm, "begin playback."

Scud signaled his acknowledgement at the exact moment that I heard the elevator door slide opened. Perfect. All that was really necessary was that the guard downstairs hadn't seen the door open. That could draw his attention to the fact that he was seeing recorded footage.

"Let me know when he opens the vault room," I said. I climbed onto the narrow ledge next to the outside elevator door; the one where there wasn't an elevator parked waiting.

"Okay, vault room opened in five… four… three… two… one… he's in. Move, you've got forty seconds," Scud announced.

I needed two things to really go my way on this one. One, I needed for the vault room door to be relatively soundproof, because the opening of the elevator door was actually pretty loud; and two, I needed for the guard not to turn around. There was absolutely no way he was going to miss me sprinting down the hallway if he did.

I slapped the manual release on the top edge of the elevator door and slid them opened.

I quickly unclipped my harness, and let the carabineer hang and ran flat out towards the glass-fronted office at the end of the hallway. On the other side of the glass, I could see the guard's receding back as he swept the flashlight back and forth.

"Twenty-five seconds," Scud announced, but I didn't have time to acknowledge it.

This door was actually pretty complicated. A key card and access code opened it; and there was no way we could bypass it. The system, however, was vulnerable at exactly one time: when the door was already open. If you knew what you were doing, you could fool the system into thinking that the door had never closed, and the lock would never engage.

I skidded to a stop next to the door. And quickly adhered a piece of electricians tape just above the edge of the door. Hanging, then I slipped a small piece of a plastic garbage bag under the tape so that it hung just past the top edge of the door. I stepped back quickly. In the darkness, they were almost invisible, if you didn't look too carefully. We'd have to chance that.

"Six seconds," Scud announced.

Time to go. I sprinted back towards the elevator and dove headlong into it, gripping the hanging carabineer as I did so and re-engaged the door which slid shut automatically.

Yeah, it was a stupid thing to do. If I'd missed, I would've fallen headfirst into an empty elevator shaft, but I didn't.

I clipped my harness back in while still hanging in the middle of the elevator shaft. Just because I'd done something dumb didn't mean I'd developed a death wish. I could feel Amy's unbelieving eyes on my back as I clipped in.

Sure enough, she looked pretty pissed when I swung around to look at her. _Sorry_, I mouthed at her.

The lock on the door was a quadruply-redundant system of laser diodes and electrical breaker-circuits. You had to block all of them simultaneously in order to convince the system that the door was opened. Blocking them after the door closed would accomplish absolutely nothing, so they had to be blocked while the door was still opened.

Sometimes, the simplest design flaw is the most useful. Something nobody would have seriously considered to be a flaw, but it was enough. It was enough that I could trick it spending all of three bucks at a hardware store.

The door opened outwards.

When the guard opened the door on his way back out of the office, and it swung closed, the black garbage bag I'd fastened to the door frame would be pinched between the door and the frame, meaning that none of the sensors would register the door as being closed. Which meant that the bolt on the electric lock would never engage.

If the door had opened inwards, I would've been screwed.

Oh, I would've found a way, to be sure, but it would've been a lot harder.

"Good job," Scud announced. "The door's rigged, and you never showed up on the monitors."

"Can you tell if it's locked?" I asked.

"Not from here," Scud replied. "Guess you'll find out when you get there."

I took a seat next to Amy on the beam. "Next time, it's your turn."

She smiled, "you kidding? It's _your_ crazy plan."

"True," I admitted. I turned to Ronnie, "okay, we'll be heading in in about ten minutes. You stay here."

"I'm going in with you," Ronnie replied firmly.

I shook my head. "No way. Everyone going in has a job to do. What, exactly, do you figure you're going to be doing in there? Can you pick the lock on the cage? How about fit under those laser beams? If you have something to do, go ahead and let me know what it is."

"How about keeping you from trying to screw me over?" Ronnie replied.

"How? We can't open the vault, and even if we could, there's nothing in there we want to steal; but the more people we put in that room, the greater the chances that we'll get caught doing it, so if you want to come in, come in next time."

Ronnie glared at me for a moment before he finally relented. "Fine," he said, "but your gloves stay here."

Ronnie wasn't just being petty here either. Without gloves, it would be almost impossible for me to avoid leaving fingerprints _somewhere_, so all he had to do was make one anonymous phone call, and Amy's and my lives would suddenly get very uncomfortable.

Which meant that at least for the next couple of weeks, when so many people had passed through that room that our prints would be completely wiped out, he owned our asses.

So much for the "cut and run" option.

Bastard.

"Okay, but Amy keeps her gloves," I said slipping the blue nitrile gloves off of my hands and handing them to Ronnie. "We need the safe's combination panel to be fingerprint-free."

I could pretty much see the gears grinding behind Ronnie's eyes. He was seriously considering saying "no" just to piss me off, but at the same time, he wanted that diamond.

Ronnie's a total prick, but at least he's reasonable about it. He finally nodded his agreement.

The guard made his trip back downstairs pretty much right on time. Close enough, at any rate, that the guard downstairs wouldn't have noticed the slight time lag between the departure of the elevator on the security monitors, and the elevator actually moving.

This guard was rapidly becoming my new best friend.

Amy and I quickly opened the outside elevator door and slipped again into the hallway.

"You have twenty minutes," Scud said, "starting now."

"Confirm," I said.

The door was unlocked. I'm not gonna go into details, but sometimes I'm so brilliant, I even amaze myself.

The Vault was pretty much impossible to miss. Large cage protruded from one of the walls of the office around a massive steel door. The only feature adorning the vault door itself was a small LCD panel in its center, and a keypad underneath it.

First off, I have to say that movies are bullshit. I always have to laugh at the movies when the heroine (or hero, I guess; I tended to notice the girls a little more) strides up to a locked door, pulls a hairpin out of her hair, wiggles it around in the lock for a few seconds, and practically without breaking her stride, flings the door opened and walks in.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way.

My absolute best time is about four minutes. This one took me almost nine. Scud had to ask me four times whether something was wrong with me. "Your average time on a lock like this is five minutes. What's taking you so long?" He asked me over and over again. I decided not to answer that one.

"Ten minutes," Scud announced, just as the door to the cage swung open.

That was enough; barely. I was going to have to work on speeding that up the next time we broke in here. What the hell was the matter with me?

I dug around in the duffel bag and pulled out a spray can. I waved it in front of me, producing a fine mist which filled the small chamber. Green laser beams practically filled it.

Amy dropped down to the ground looking under the lowest beams. "I can't fit under that," she said, standing up.

"Sure you can," I said, my gaze dropped to her chest, "but you might need a little help."

"Help? What do you mean by…"

Her question was cut off when I handed her an eight-inch wide Ace bandage.

"What's this for?" She looked at me.

"Well, you might have to lose a couple of inches," I told her.

She looked confused for a moment before I shyly nodded at her chest again. Her eyes widened, "oh, you've _got_ to be kidding me."

"Hey, it's not my fault that you've got an absolutely phenomenal pair of…"

She shivered, "that's not the…" She stopped, looking at me, "phenomenal?" She asked.

"Um, girls?" Scud's voice sounded over the radio, "as much as I'm enjoying listening in here, have you noticed a big heist-like thing going on right now?"

Amy and I shared a smile. "Okay, Scud, shut off your monitors for a second, Amy's changing. That's applies to you too, Ronnie."

"I'm a thief, not a scoundrel," Ronnie's voice was indignant. He much, at least, was true. He'd turn around while a woman changed and he wouldn't even peek, but for some reason he didn't have the slightest qualm about beating one up. I'd had a couple of broken bones to prove it.

While Amy changed, I lay on my stomach, stretching a long, telescoping rod out in front of me. A small, but strong magnet was affixed to the end of it, and it trailed a long rope, looped back on itself, behind it. That would be the pulley to drag Amy under those laser beams.

I turned around to see a slightly less feminine-looking Amy finishing buttoning up her shirt. "Next time," she said, "you go under the lasers."

"Deal," I replied. "Okay, guys, you can look now," I called over the radio.

Actually, getting Amy under those lasers was less dramatic than I thought it would be. She had a couple of inches to spare. She actually maneuvered her way around the rather cramped space with unusual grace. I had to remind myself again that she wasn't exactly a stranger to this kind of thing. The most adventurous thing I'd seen her do in the last four years was drive out to the coast to paint a sunset.

"How many times do we have to enter the wrong code?" I asked Scud.

"Four," Scud replied.

"Okay," I tilted my head in Amy's direction, "go at it."

Amy started tapping in digits at random. Every so often the panel would inform her that she'd got the wrong code. No surprise there. The odds of us getting the right code were, what, four in a billion?

"Now, remember not to tap in all nine digits on this one," I said, "we don't want to set this thing off, we want the guy who works here to do it."

"Okay," Amy replied, "six digits coming up."

"Girls, it's a school night. Time to come home," Scud announced.

"How long?" I asked, as I pulled Amy back under the laser beams.

"Three minutes. Move," Scud told me.

I quickly threw all our equipment into the duffel, quickly scanning the room to make sure that we weren't leaving anything behind. A thin mist still hung in the cage, but that would dissipate for the most part by the time the security guard returned. "We're moving," I said.

The door was still unlocked when we opened it. I reached up to remove the electricians tape before I allowed the door to close and lock, then together, Amy and I darted back to the still-open elevator shaft. We were strapped in and the elevator door had just closed when I heard the other elevator begin its ascent.

-x-

It wasn't until we were back in the car that I took my first steady breath in almost two hours. That had gone relatively smoothly; but that was the easy part.

"Okay, that's phase one," I said, "tomorrow, we get that combination."


	9. Misdirection

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 9:**

Knowing Ronnie, I really shouldn't have been surprised that he had been packing during our first break-in. He always had his trusty Glock on him somewhere. Kinda surprising that a guy with a penchant for American hardware would be so eager to pack a Austrian-made gun; but I guess he decided that he needed something rugged and reliable.

Yeah, the fact that he was carrying really shouldn't have surprised me in the least.

So I guess it's fair to say that I overreacted a little when I found out.

"You brought a _gun_ on a break-in?" I yelled at him, "what the hell is the matter with you?"

"We were breaking into a building with armed guards," Ronnie replied, his voice steady. "You think that I wasn't going to arm myself?"

"You know, Ronnie," I said through clenched teeth, "I always credited you with having something which could be mistaken for brains." I thrust a finger at him, "now I'm glad you weren't with us in the vault room. What if the guard had come up early? Shooting him would've put a _real_ damper on your 'nobody can no we've broken in' plan, wouldn't it?"

"So would getting caught by him," Ronnie countered. He stood, thrusting the pistol in my face, pointing it at my forehead, "you're not in charge here," he said, his voice threatening, "you never were. So get the job done and walk away."

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that my next move was a bit of a gamble. I was gambling that his desire to see this theft go through would overrule his desire to pull the trigger, at least for the moment. Once he had the diamond in his hand, the odds were that both Amy and I were dead; but for the moment, he needed me. I was gambling that he needed me enough to slow down his trigger finger a fraction of a second.

I quickly thought out a silent prayer that nobody was standing directly behind me and slapped his gun hand aside.

It was more the force of my strike that caused him to reflexively pull the trigger; rather than any real desire to shoot me. Maybe I imagined it, but I'm positive I heard the bullet whistle through the air a couple of inches away from my right ear. I didn't hear anybody go down, and at the very least Scud and Amy were standing in front of me; so they weren't in the line of fire.

The force of the strike, combined with the Glock's not insubstantial recoil knocked the gun from his hand.

It never struck the ground. I caught it, and brought it up to point at the center of his chest. I took a step back, out of his reach. "Who's in charge now?" I asked.

"Lucy," Amy's voice drifted over from behind Ronnie.

"You've got a better idea?" I asked her, without turning to face her. "You think anybody's really gonna miss him?" My finger tightened on the trigger. "I know I sure as hell won't."

Ronnie actually smiled. "So shoot me," he said simply.

"You think I won't?"

"I _know_ you won't," he replied, "and if you do, my men will be generous enough to make sure that you live just long enough to watch the DEB die."

Dammit. I'd forgotten about the lackeys for a second there. Ronnie was a control freak; and not to put too fine a point on things, he was in control at the moment. They'd shoot Amy, probably somewhere where she'd die slowly and painfully, and they'd force me to watch until her heart stopped beating; and they'd do it even if Ronnie wasn't around anymore to keep them in line.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't seriously consider shooting him anyway; at least for a second. If it were just me on the line, I probably would've. But it wasn't. Ronnie was holding all the cards, and he knew it. I took a deep breath, letting the tension bleed out of my limbs before I flipped the gun around, holding it butt-first to Ronnie. "If you ever bring a gun on one of my jobs again, I'll make you regret it."

"Come now," have I mentioned how much I hate it when Ronnie's being patronizing? "We both know that you wouldn't have fired." Almost as much as I hate it when he's right.

I turned around, my shoulders squared, and walked away.

Even if Amy hadn't yelled to warn me, I probably would've been able to swing around to block Ronnie's strike. He wasn't going for subtle. He just wanted it to be clear who was really the boss here. I wasn't exactly a martial arts master by any stretch of the imagination, but even with my meager skills, I figured I could at least prevent him from hitting me full-force.

I was wrong, but not in the way you think.

He actually drew short, stopping his blow before it connected with the arm I'd raised to block it. His fist hung in the air, shaking with the tension, poised to hit me right above the jawline.

We stood for the briefest of moments, his dark eyes bored through mine as I glared back at him.

"Drop your hands," he said. His voice was perfectly level, betraying none of the tension which was all too obvious in his body. "I won't ask again."

I didn't move. There was no way in hell I was gonna let him smack me around.

I heard a series of clicks off to my right. I didn't turn to look, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see no fewer than four automatic rifles taking careful aim at Amy.

"_Drop them_!" He ordered again. His fist still hung in the air, waiting for an unobstructed striking path.

My hands were shaking as I slowly lowered them to hang at my sides.

Okay, I just want to digress for a second to say _ouch._ If I'd ever wondered what it would feel like to be shot with a cannonball, I'm pretty sure Ronnie cleared it up for me. I think I saw a Julia Roberts movie some time when she was wondering if the boys were taken aside in kindergarten to teach them how to hit girls properly. Now, I don't spend a lot of time getting hit, but I have to admit that this one was a doozie. An electric blast of pain tore through my left cheek. I'm pretty sure I bit down on my tongue because I could feel warm blood spill out between my lips. Brilliant flashes of light exploded in my field of vision. I think I might have blacked out for a second because the next thing I clearly remember was being on all fours on a very cold concrete floor. That one was gonna leave a big-ass bruise.

I made a mental note that Ronnie had just forfeited the privilege of my going easy on him.

-x-

Remember how I mentioned that Amy would make a great mother someday? She never left my side that whole night. I don't think she slept either. She certainly wasn't going to let me sleep. Something about how I might have a concussion or something. I think my brain got knocked around a little there 'cause the next hour or so is a little jumpy. Like a bunch of puzzle pieces lying on a table.

"This what your life was like before I came along?" Amy asked, lovingly brushing a stray lock of hair away from my eyes.

"No," I groaned slightly, "sometimes it was actually unpleasant."

"Well, at least your sense of humor's intact," Amy smiled slightly in the dim light.

"How bad is it?" I asked, bringing a hand to my forehead.

"You've got a pretty nasty bruise there, and you bit your tongue," Amy told me.

"Can it be covered for tomorrow?" I asked, "I don't want to give anyone anything that'll help them remember me. A huge honking bruise will do that nicely."

Amy nodded, "yeah, a little makeup should do it."

"That's good," I took a long breath and slumped backwards on the small camping cot.

Amy was silent for a long time before she spoke again. "Mind telling me what that was all about?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure that he hit me," I replied.

"That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it," Amy told me.

"He brought a gun on the job," I countered, "no guns on jobs like this. You bring a gun, you're tempted to use it."

"So you take it and threaten him with it?" Amy asked. "Lucy, you went in there looking for a fight."

"What, exactly, are you bothering me about?" I asked, "I mean, I'm the one who got punched here."

"It's just that you've been… different since you've been here," Amy frowned. "It's like you're turning into that _other_ Lucy," she jerked her head in the direction of the doorway, "the one _he_ knows, not the one I do."

"You sure know a lot of Lucys," I answered wryly.

"Lucy…"

"Amy, we're dealing with someone who likes to play hardball. The only way to play is to be just as harsh and ruthless as he is," I told her.

"I'm not sure I like that," Amy said quietly.

"Well," I countered, "I _am_ sure. I don't like it."

Okay, for the record, I hated lying to her. Partly because I suck at it, and it's really only because I was still half-stunned from the punch I'd just taken that I was able to get away with it. Any of my "tells," Amy would've passed off as me still not being all there from the punch.

I didn't lie about the not liking it part, 'cause I didn't. But the bottom line is that Ronnie needed to believe I was backsliding to my old ways. More than that, he needed to see me make some overt move against him. Like, for instance, pulling a gun on him. He needed to actually see me try something or he'd wonder what I was trying that he _hadn't_ seen. Houdini would've called it "misdirection."

But just for the record, I _hated_ having to lie to her; but the bottom line is that someone was listening to us right now, I was sure of it. That's why he kept the room so dark, so I wouldn't be able to find where he'd bugged it. So if he needed to believe that I was sliding back to my old ways, Amy did too.

I promised myself that I'd make it up to her if we lived through this.


	10. Recovery

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

* * *

**Chapter 10:**

The alarm on the vault went off right on time; practically to the minute at 8:46 AM the next morning. So far, so good.

Gotta hand it to Tippmann, too. They respond quickly; especially to US customs. I once had to change my phone number, and that took me weeks to arrange. Tippmann was changing the vault's combination within hours.

We watched the vault technician arrive and leave. We couldn't watch what actually happened in the vault room, but the protocol was pretty well established. Tippmann would reset the system, set a new access code, just in case the old one had been compromised, then pass it, written on a slip of paper, to the customs official authorized to open the vault. He would then shred it in the presence of the technician.

In other words, the only written record of would be destroyed within thirty seconds of it being set.

So we needed to get our hands on those shreds.

Scud had the somewhat unenviable task of going through all the documents the customs official had shredded in the last week and piecing together that one document which would let us into the vault. But he said he could do it, and he's never failed me before.

My left cheek was a rather pretty hue of purple the next morning. The swelling was substantial, but it was a lot less noticeable once Amy helped me cake it with a nice thick layer of makeup. As long as nobody looked too closely, I would be okay.

It was hard to look her in the eyes as she worked to conceal my injuries; partly because she wasn't exactly being her talkative self, mostly because I was feeling a little guilty. I accepted long ago that sometimes you have to lie to live. I just didn't expect that I'd have to lie to _her_. On that note, can I just add that I love Amy to pieces, but she does have this ice queen routine that is frankly scary. Normally, she's one of the warmest, most loving human beings I know. But if you push her, you end up with freezer burn. Not fun.

Chills notwithstanding, I managed to get all the necessary injuries concealed, and changed into a uniform for Howlet Confidentials paper disposal company.

I didn't care much for Howlet's uniform. I guess that could be related to the fact I happen to be a big fan of the female form, and their uniform seemed designed to smother it; make it into an unrecognizable, shapeless, genderless, walking heap of cloth. Normally, I'm not one to sing the DEBS praises, but I put credit where credit's due: they've got a decent dress code.

Amy had asked me once why her. Why'd I go after an ostensibly-straight super-duper crime fighter woman who happened to be trying to arrest me at the time? My answer was "two words: plaid skirt." I'd always wondered if she ever realized that I was only half-joking.

Oh, stop looking at me that way. It's not like it's the only reason we got together, but cutting the crap for a second: she was wearing a plaid miniskirt that showed off an awful lot of leg; she was wearing a partly-unbuttoned (and untucked) white shirt that hugged her figure quite well; and she was holding me at gunpoint. You'd think that last one would've cold-showered her sex appeal a little. And you'd be wrong.

It didn't take me long to decide that I much preferred walking in through the front door to tying myself to the bottom of the elevator. For one thing, I was significantly less likely to take a six-story fall this way. The guard at the front desk barely even looked at me before he waved me up to the sixth floor. Guess he figured that a robbery in broad daylight when there were cameras on every floor, and the building was bustling with activity was pretty unlikely. To be fair, he was right. I handed him my ID (one of Scud's better fakes, I've got to say; and he's done some good ones for me in the past), he quickly glanced up at my face to make sure it matched the picture on the ID, then quickly waved it under a UV light to verify its authenticity. I wasn't really worried. Scud's the best.

But why he gave me the name "Suzy Topaz" is just beyond me. It sounds like a cross between a blonde valley girl and a stripper. The guard didn't seem to notice. Maybe he spent a lot of time at strip clubs; I don't know.

Also, let me point out that riding up _inside_ the elevator car was much preferable to dangling on the outside. They were rigged with cameras, so I kept my head tilted downwards so that my bangs hung down to conceal most of my face. Provided nobody looked too closely at the footage in the next two weeks, we'd probably get in and out clean.

The secret to being somewhere you don't belong is not to _look_ like you don't belong. I was one of thousands of people that would appear on the security footage during the day. As long as I didn't do anything overly suspicious, I probably wouldn't even be noticed. I had a couple of things working to my advantage, namely the fact that nobody ever takes a good look at their garbage man — _person_. So walking back into the office I'd broken into less than twelve hours before was remarkably easy.

I stepped in through the glass door. It was unlocked now, and with a little luck, nobody would think to print it in the next two weeks either. So far, nobody had any reason to suspect that we'd broken in.

I took a quick note of the make and model of the shredder sitting on the office floor. I didn't know for sure if Scud needed that to make his magic work, but I wasn't gonna break back into the office for it; plus I made sure that I got all the scraps out of the garbage pail under the shredder. Didn't want to miss something that Scud could find vital.

The customs official seated at the desk didn't speak to me. He barely even seemed to notice that I was there; which, fortunately, was exactly what I was hoping for.

I ducked into the washroom and carefully stuffed one white garbage bag, the one which held the shreds from the vault room, into my shirt. Considering that I had enough spare room in there to fit three of me, that was actually a pretty easy task.

Leaving the building was almost as much of a non-event as entering was.

Getting outside, on the other hand, was a bit of an experience.

It was the flash of blue plaid I saw out of the corner of my eye that first made my eyes dart to the left. _Okay_, I thought, _there's Max._ _Where's the lackey_?

He had to be around here somewhere; there's no way that Ronnie would've let me out on something like this without surveillance, but I couldn't see him anywhere. There was no signature black Buick parked on the street, and there were dozens of people walking past, talking on cellphones, if he was out there, he'd picked the perfect place to hide.

But he'd probably spotted Max, so he wasn't about to do anything overt to draw attention to himself. The last thing he wanted to do was bring the DEBS down on his head. So if I bolted, wherever he was, he was probably going to stay put. Max, on the other hand, was probably going to give chase, and that chick was fast.

So I glanced over at her quickly, then immediately ran in the opposite direction. I felt, rather than really saw or heard, Max break into a sprint behind me. She runs fast, so I was pretty sure she'd overtake me in a straight-out footrace, so I ducked into the first alleyway I could find. As I darted around another corner, the butt of a pistol lashed out, smacking me just over my right eyebrow. The force of the blow, combined with my own forward momentum, snapped my head backwards and I landed flat on my back on the cold concrete. As I lifted myself up to a half-seated position, I looked up to see Max training a gun on me. Guess she'd decided to cut around and head me off. I had to remind myself that she was a squad leader. Strategy? Not exactly a weak point for her. I lifted my fingers to my eyebrow, rubbing it gingerly. My face had had far better weeks.

"I owed you that one," she said through gritted teeth.

Okay, to be fair, she was right on that one.

My gaze drifted slightly over to her right as I saw something move. I stood, leaning heavily on the brick wall next to me as the world seemed to spin out of control. "Well, whaddaya know?" I commented. My speech was a little slurry. "The whole gang's here." Janet stood just behind max and to the left, a Beretta in her hands trained on me. Behind her was the other one. Frenchie. I can never remember her name; Dom-something. She was armed with what looked like a MAC-10 autopistol, and had her trademark cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. I tell you, that girl's gonna die of lung cancer at thirty. I turned back towards Janet. "Hi Janet," I said.

"Is Amy okay?" She asked immediately.

I nodded, "yeah, as long as I play nice."

"What does he want from you?" Max asked.

I shook my head, "it won't come to that," I insisted. "How'd you know where I'd be?"

"We got an anonymous call this morning," Max replied. "Told us you'd be here."

"You specifically?" I asked. "It didn't come down from one of your higher-ups?"

Max shook her head, "we got the call directly."

That was Scud's doing. So far, so good.

"I need a favor," I told Max.

-x-

"You got the combination?" Ronnie demanded as soon as I walked into the room.

I produced a small black garbage bag and dropped it on the table, "it's in there somewhere," I told him. "Scud can piece it back together."

Amy's eyes widened as she looked at the large bruise over my right eyebrow. I'd have quite the black eye the next morning; which didn't _really_ matter because I didn't need to be seen in public for almost two weeks. "Jesus, what happened?"

"You should see the other guy," I muttered.

"Who was it?" Ronnie demanded.

"Like you don't know," I countered. I turned to Amy, "your ex-coworkers decided to pay me a visit."

"What did you talk about?" Ronnie asked.

Okay, this was going to be a gamble. Either he knew what we'd talked about, and was playing with me, or he didn't know, and wanted to find out. I gestured at the bruise on my face, "does it look like we spent much time talking?" I demanded.

Ronnie produced a small micro cassette recorder. He pressed the play button, and laid it on the table in front of me.

"I need a favor," my voice spoke from the tiny speaker.

_Shit._

"What do you need?" Max's voice responded.

I'd already considered the possibility that maybe he'd bugged me. One of the buttons in my shirt, probably. Another one probably had a GPS locator. Fortunately, what was being said wasn't critical, and judging by the way he was playing things, he hadn't rigged me with a camera.

"We're in the old Whistler Steel factory just north of the city. I'll worry about keeping Amy safe; I need you to come in and come in hard," my voice replied.

"You realize that we can't let you go," Max replied. "We _will_ take you in."

"I don't care about that," I heard myself say, "can you do it?"

Ronnie stopped the recording. "For the record, whoever it was who called them anonymously, it wasn't me."

_No shit_. I thought sarcastically.

"Now, my dear Lucinda," he shook his head disappointedly, "what shall I ever do with you?"

I closed my eyes tightly. This was really gonna hurt.

-x-

When the gray cloud in front of my eyes cleared, Amy was again sitting next to me. Just about everything hurt now. Nothing felt broken, but most of it felt bruised in some way. I guess he wanted me to be recovered enough to finish phase two in two weeks. I was pretty sure that he wasn't going to kill me. He still needed me; but I was equally certain that this last stunt wasn't going to make it likely that he would just let me to when it was all over.

"How do I look?" I croaked.

"You look fine," Amy replied.

"For a perfect liar," I replied, "that was a pretty crappy one."

Amy winced, "sorry."

"Where are we?" I asked.

"A wine cellar of some kind," Amy replied. "Or at least one room of a wine cellar. I saw at least six rooms this size down here."

I nodded, "Ronnie keeps a few of them. He does like his wine." I tried to shake the cobwebs out of my head. "Take it we're locked in?"

Amy nodded sadly, "and the bastard didn't even give us a cot this time. Just a blanket and a couple of pillows."

I nodded. He would've vacated that factory right quick; probably to go somewhere relatively close to the target, if he stuck with his usual pattern.

Funny how my attempts to direct attention away from what I'm actually doing usually end up with me getting beaten up. Maybe I need to rethink my decision-making paradigm.

"Scud's got the combination?" I asked.

"He's working on it," Amy said, "he thinks it'll take a while because the shredder was one of those ones that cuts strips, and crosscuts as well."

"Any idea where Ronnie put the blueprints, plans, all that stuff?" I asked.

"There's a safe in another room like this one. I think that's where he put your guns too," she said.

"Well, at least they're all in the same place," I replied.

"Somehow, I don't think we're going to be able to get to that safe, much less crack it," Amy replied.

"Then we'll have to be a little smarter," I replied idly. "You okay?"

"I'm not the one who's been beaten up three times in the last two days," Amy replied with a slight smirk.

"Yeah," I lay back on the pillow, closing my eyes for a moment, "makes me want to rethink my image as a people-person."

"You feeling okay?" She asked.

"Well…" I drawled, "I could use someone to snuggle up with."

"I have no idea where Scud is," Amy smiled thinly.

I started to laugh, but winced in pain, grabbing my ribs, "ooh, don't make me do that."

"Sorry," she whispered, sliding under the blanket next to me. I snuggled up next to her, letting my head rest against her chest where I could feel her breathing, and hear the soothing throb of her heartbeat.

It was going to be two weeks before we could go for the diamond. I'd be spending most of that time recovering, and I knew that Amy would spend all that time right next to me. As I finally drifted off to sleep, it occurred to me that there were worse places to recover.


	11. Scores to Settle

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 11:**

Ronnie actually allowed us a fair amount of freedom while we waited for the delivery of the diamond. Oh, he kept us on a tight leash, we had the threat of him turning me in hanging over our heads pretty much 24/7, and I'm pretty sure that he had us bugged somehow. My prints could probably be lifted from no fewer than a dozen different places in the Vault room. One anonymous call to the DEBS and our lives stateside would be effectively over.

The one thing Amy and I had going for us is that the DEBS didn't know we were here. As long as they never found out, there was at least a chance that we could slip back out of the country unnoticed.

Of course, even having the DEBS find us had its silver lining. I'd have the chance to kick Amy's ex's ass _again_. Something which, I'm sure, would bring me no small degree of satisfaction.

_Almost_ worth spending the better part of the rest of my life in prison, assuming I made it that far. As far as the DEBS knew, I was a mass-murderer; not exactly the type of person to motivate them _not_ to shoot first.

Scud was working pretty much twenty-four hour days trying to get the combination; and as the big day kept drawing closer, Ronnie was getting irritable; and he didn't have anyone to loose his frustration on.

I had to work really hard to hide my glee at the fact that Ronnie was starting to lose his cool. And I'll admit that I went about doing little things just to irritate him a little more. I don't chew bubble gum, as a general rule, but I went down to the corner store and bought a pack just because he hated the sound of bubbles popping. And just because I could, I opened one of his more expensive bottles of wine and shared it with Amy in our little room. That one had almost pushed him over the edge.

And I went out of the way to mention how little time Scud had to work out the combination to the vault at every single possible opportunity. Not that I was worried that Scud wouldn't figure it out — he would — but Ronnie didn't know that. In short, I made it my personal mission to piss him off just enough that he wouldn't actually shoot me, but he'd want to.

Funny how the number of people who want me dead always seems to climb when I'm in the states. I lived in Reykjavik for two years; and there wasn't so much as one assassination attempt. I come to LA for two weeks, and I'd been attacked on a freeway, had guns pulled on me more times than I care to keep track of, been beaten up three times, and I was already in the middle of a diamond heist. I guess everything moves a little faster in the good ol' US of A.

We kept tight surveillance on the customs house. Making sure that the guard with OCD (AKA: my new best friend) didn't suddenly start changing his routine or his schedule.

_There_, at least, our luck was holding so far. He wasn't scheduled to take a vacation for another month, so we'd be stuck with him on the big night.

That just wouldn't do.

Ronnie is a lot of things, but patient happens to not be one of them. As the days rolled into weeks, he started drinking a little more, sleeping a little less and acting a little less rationally; even for him.

So I was completely unsurprised when I walked into the little room he'd set up for Scud to do his work and found him pacing impatiently behind Scud.

"You hanging over my shoulder isn't going to make this work any faster," Scud commented as I walked in.

"We have two days," Ronnie said tightly, "the diamond is already in the vault, and in two days, it's going to be removed." His tone changed and became ominously threatening, "and if I can't acquire that diamond, all three of you are completely useless to me. Do I make myself clear?"

"Oh yeah, Ronnie," I said, stepping into the room, "threats are always a good way of motivating someone to work harder."

Ronnie glared at me. Wow, he really was on edge today. He slid a cellular phone out of his pocket and dialed. "Yes, I need a customs agent apprehended and interrogated," Ronnie said to whoever was on the other end.

Wait, what? "Ronnie…" I started softly.

"Yes, he's working today," he continued as if I hadn't spoken.

"_Ronnie_." I said sharply.

He pulled the phone away from his ear. "Back up plan," he said simply.

"You said nobody gets hurt," I told him.

"Plan's changed," he replied.

"Yeah, but I can pretty much guarantee that killing off the one customs agent that has the combination will probably tip them off," I told him.

"By the time he's reported missing, we'll be long gone," Ronnie replied. He again lifted the phone to his ear. "Yes, get the combination from him and then make it look like an accident."

"God dammit, Ronnie; no!" I yelled. "You so much as touch a hair on his head and I swear to you…"

"What?" Ronnie demanded. "You're unarmed, you have two people you would just hate to lose. I, on the other hand, have men with guns, and absolutely no compunction about ordering them to shoot all three of you."

"Nobody gets hurt," I snapped, "that was your promise _to me_."

"Knowing how much _your_ promises are worth, that very statement is almost laughable," Ronnie countered.

"Lucy, what is he talking…" Amy started.

"Guys!" Scud's fist slammed down on the desk, bringing all conversation to a screeching halt. "We've got it." The printer hummed to life, and a single shit of paper slid out of it.

"Cancel that order," Ronnie spoke into the phone before he walked to the printer to snatch the image from it.

I tried not to smirk as I felt a surge of triumph rush through my body. _Gotcha_. But I kept my voice level as I said "make sure you put that in a safe place. There's no way Scud's gonna be able to get it for you again by tomorrow." I turned to Scud, "make sure you scrub the hard drive. We want no evidence that it ever existed."

"One hard drive purge coming up," Scud announced.

Ronnie walked over to the safe in the corner and opened it. He slid a smaller lockbox out from the bottom drawer and opened it. I imagined that was where he kept most of his more vital documents. Figures. That box was pretty much bombproof. On one of the top shelves I saw some of the more familiar works. The blueprints to the building, the technical data on the vault and vault room, and as paperweights, my lucky Beretta and Max's revolver.

I'd once heard an interview with Bobby Fischer when he claimed that he could picture a chess board twenty moves deep. Now, I don't know if he'd ever hand a chance to prove that he could, but that was pretty much where we were now. We were in the endgame. All the pieces were in place. The trap was set; all we needed to do was spring it.

-x-

"Mind telling me what that was all about?" Amy asked.

"You heard. He was gonna kill the…"

"Not that," Amy replied. She took a long breath, "I think it's time you told me about your history with this guy."

I took a long breath and let it out as I sat on the blanket we had spread out on the floor of the wine cellar. "Do you know what my first ever diamond heist was?"

"It's in your file," Amy said, "Berlin, I think."

I shook my head, "it's not in my file."

"Where was it?"

"Right here, in LA," I told her, "or at least it would've been. A blue diamond called the _Star of Antarctica_."

Amy's eyes widened, "you and Ronnie have tried to steal this diamond before."

I nodded. "And I've tried to steal it since; and obviously failed every time."

"So… What?"

"First time we tried, I got nabbed. The DEBS grabbed me. I don't think they knew who I was; or really at the time, who my father was. I was heir to the Reynolds Crime Syndicate, but I don't think they knew that. As far as they were concerned, I was just one of Ronnie's lackeys; so they went about trying to extract information on Ronnie from me," I explained.

Amy shuddered, the one thing I didn't have to tell her was how good the DEBS could be at extracting information.

"It didn't take much," I said. I know, it was a lame attempt to reassure her, but it was all I had at the moment. "I was eighteen, I had the choice between turning Ronnie in, or reaching my forties before I got out."

"You turned state's evidence," Amy realized.

I nodded. "An honor among thieves is a load of shit. Ever wonder how Ms. Petrie got to be in charge? She was just your everyday DEB when I first met her. The information I gave her allowed her to capture him, his number one man was shot and killed in the shoot-out. Ronnie was captured and thrown in jail. Petrie became a hero overnight for capturing the legendary Ronald Cockburn. She tried to renege on the deal we made, arguing that the information I had was worth a lot more than any promise she might have made to me. The guy in charge at the time disagreed. I was booted out on the street; Ronnie went to jail; all records of the event were wiped from the DEBS' database. As DEB operations go, I guess this was actually a pretty tidy one."

"I always wondered why she was so obsessed with catching you," Amy said idly.

"Yeah, that woman hates loose ends; and I'm a big one," I replied. "Anyway, Ronnie broke out four months later. Since then, I've worked with him a couple of times; made him a really rich man, too. I thought we were square." I shrugged. "Guess not."

"He really can nurse a grudge, can't he?"

"He's got tough nipples," I replied. "I guess in his mind we won't be square until he gets his hands on the diamond we were trying to steal in the first place."

"So _that's_ why you kept trying to steal it," Amy added.

"Yeah," I agreed, "I don't like loose ends either. I figured that diamond was the best way to balance the scales, but failing that, I figured making Ronnie filthy rich would do just as well." I winced. "Have I mentioned lately that I'm _really_ sorry I got you into this?"

"So why did you keep failing?"

I shrugged, "I don't know, really. Usually something just went wrong. I'm not a suspicious person, but I think the _Star_ may be my unicorn. That big score that no matter how hard you try, you can never steal."

"And now Ronnie needs you to steal it."

"Yeah," I nodded, "he's sending me a message."

"What's that?"

"That this time, he's gonna settle the score."


	12. So far, So good

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 12:**

Scud burst into the room early the next morning, clearly agitated. He glanced down at the two of us, snuggled comfortably on the floor, and drew to a halt. "Oh, sorry," he said quickly before spinning around to face the door again.

"'S'okay, Scud," I slurred sleepily, reluctantly opening my eyes before I untangled myself from Amy's arms which were still protectively wrapped around me. I sat up, rubbing my forehead, and twisted my neck from side to side, trying to work the kinks out of it. "What's up?"

"We've got…"

"Scud, we're both decent, you can turn around," I muttered impatiently. Something about not being able to look him in the eye when he talks to me bothers me. I guess I like to have some way of reading him when he's talking.

Scud obediently turned around to face me. "We've got a problem," he said slowly.

I snapped awake as I sat bolt upright. "How bad?"

-x-

"Norwalk Virus," Ronnie said angrily as I stepped into one of the wine cellars he'd converted into his office. "Very contagious, burns itself out in about 48 hours. Not deadly, but very unpleasant. And he's got it."

I turned to Scud, "who?"

"The guard," Scud whispered sideways to me.

"Obsessive-compulsive guy?" I whispered back. Scud nodded.

"He's going to be throwing up steadily for the next 48 hours or so," Ronnie told me, "so he's going to be replaced tonight."

"When does the diamond leave?"

"Tomorrow morning," Ronnie replied.

"And he won't be back by then?"

Ronnie shook his head.

I frowned as I chewed on my lower lip. I quickly looked over at Scud, who shook his head to my unasked question. Finally, I shook my head, defeated, "we have to abort."

"Not a chance," Ronnie said firmly.

"No, you don't understand, we have a new variable here. If he leaves his post a little early, goes up and sees us, we're hooped. We don't know what his schedule's going to be," I rasped, "I can't dodge a guard if I don't know when he's coming."

"I understand perfectly. We are going in, and we are stealing that diamond," Ronnie said, his voice dangerously calm.

"I don't do amateur nights," I said firmly. "We go in there tonight, we're going in blind. I do not do that. We abort. We can get the diamond another time."

"I am not waiting another month to get this diamond," Ronnie replied, equally firmly.

"Well, I've got news for you, if the guard comes up early, we're gonna be in jail a lot longer than a month," I snapped.

"If he comes up early, then we will deal with that issue when it comes up," Ronnie replied.

"What, shoot him?" I snapped, "sure as hell didn't take you long to abandon that whole nobody can know we broke in plan, didn't it?"

"The plan is to get the diamond," Ronnie replied, "not having anyone find out is a bonus. If they do, we'll just have to leave the country sooner."

I clenched my jaw, "fine, but if anybody dies, it's on your head, you hear me? I'm not going down for Murder one. Robbery, fine; embezzlement, sure; but murder, that's your style, not mine." I spun around to leave the room.

"I must say, I'm impressed," Ronnie told me.

I stopped at the doorway. "At what?" I asked without turning around.

"At the short time it took you to abandon your new-found morality," Ronnie replied. "Two weeks. I believe that's a record, even for you."

I turned to face Ronnie. "You know me, Ronnie. I'm always looking out for number one." I took a step forward, glaring into his eyes, "that doesn't include you."

-x-

"So what's the situation?" Amy asked as I stepped back into our little improvised cell.

"We don't have our favorite guard anymore," I said.

Amy's eyes widened, "He's kinda the lynch-pin in this whole thing, can we do it without him?"

I shrugged, "I don't know."

"That's it? 'I don't know?'" Amy chewed on her lower lip uncomfortably. "Those aren't good words to hear from you."

I nodded, "all I know is that Ronnie's pretty adamant that we go in, even if it means we get caught."

"What does that mean?"

It probably means that he doesn't have the slightest intention of letting us walk out of that building alive. I didn't say that aloud, but I'm pretty sure Amy read it from my expression.

She looked at me, her lips pursing before she closed her eyes and gave a small nod. "Okay," she said quietly.

"Get dressed," I told her, "and as fond as I am of your hair, you might want to consider shaving your head."

"What's that?"

"Don't want to leave any hair on site," I replied. "This is the age of DNA analysis, and both of us are on file."

"Good point," Amy nodded.

"It'll grow back," I added quickly, "and a wig will work for the time being."

"The things you get me into…" Amy rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Jumpsuits," I threw her a nondescript blue jumpsuit. I sighed melodramatically as she held it up to herself. It would fit perfectly, and it would provide her with a lot of ease of movement, but it wasn't exactly flattering to her figure. I tossed her a wide Ace bandage, "might as well put it on before we get inside the building this time."

She frowned at me, "you need it more than I do."

"Yeah, but you expect me to bandage myself up if you're not? C'mon, this is the twenty-first century," I told her.

Amy frowned, "you do realize that the whole feminine empowerment thing only works if you're talking to someone with a Y-chromosome, right?"

"Hey, I'm the victimized girl-child constantly searching for her father's affection, right?" I replied, wryly.

Amy winced, "you weren't supposed to read that."

"You got an A," I said, impressed, "apparently someone out there agreed with you."

"Wait a second, how did you read that? The only copy's at the DEBS headquarters," Amy tilted her head at me.

"Well, I am a thief."

"You broke into the DEBS headquarters to steal my thesis?" Amy's eyebrows arched, "their base is loaded with have God-knows how many valuable do-dads and you steal my _thesis_?"

"Well, I wasn't about to steal anything that didn't belong to one of us," I shrugged. "Besides which, leaving the DEBS with that much information about me seemed like a pretty bad idea." I smiled wickedly, "then when I realized just how far off the mark you were, I decided to leave it behind."

Amy grinned, "touché."

-x-

Nobody ever mentions how weird a draft you get on the top of your head when you trim your hair down to less than a quarter of an inch. The room suddenly felt a lot colder for some reason. It sent shivers up my spine.

But that wasn't exactly what was on my mind at the moment.

"You do remember what happened to the last of your lackeys that you had pat me down, right?" I muttered angrily as Ronnie held his trusty Glock trained on me. I had my hands behind my head as one of his lackeys' hands wandered (a little too eagerly, if you ask me) all over my body, looking for the distinctive shape of a gun strapped somewhere on my body.

"Forgive me if it seems as if I don't trust you," Ronnie said, leveling the gun at me, "but I don't trust you."

They even checked my trusty lock pick kit. Dad had given it to me when I turned eighteen. Some thieves used these complicated lock guns. You stick it into the lock, squeeze the trigger a few times, and it literally rattles the tumblers of the lock into alignment. They worked fine with the really simple locks, but the more complex ones tended to muck them up. I guess you could say that I worked old-school.

"She's clean," the lackey announced, jumping backwards as he said so. Smart guy. Guess he heard about the broken nose I gave the last one. He walked over to Amy, who had her fingers laced behind her head.

"She's clean, too," he announced a few minutes later.

"Okay, let's get this over with."

-x-

I carefully glanced at the road that ran in front of the customs house. There were a few cars parked in the street; a red corvette, a black VW bug, and what looked like a dark blue SUV. None of them had any occupants.

I pretended not to notice anyone's nervousness as I ran my fingertips over the hair which barely would have qualified as stubble, and I shivered at the unfamiliar feel of my own fingertips. "Okay, that's gonna take a little getting used to."

Amy nodded her agreement, unconsciously mimicking my action. "Good thing my hair grows fast," she muttered, as she pulled a baseball cap down over her head.

"How many times do you expect me to say I'm sor—," I started.

"At least one more time," Amy smiled, handing me another baseball cap.

-x-

"I'm already missing the old guard," I muttered while we perched on the I-beam, six floors up.

"She's got no pattern," Amy added. We'd watched the guard make four trips up and down. The first two trips had been twenty minutes apart; the last two were nine. If I'd had time to really stake the joint out, I might've been able to work out some kind of minimum time available before we were in danger of getting caught. Now, I had nothing.

"If she comes up while we're in the middle of breaking the vault…" Amy started.

"…We're screwed," I finished for her, "I know." I closed my eyes, running through everything we had to do to crack that vault in my mind. I guess we were just gonna have to hope that our new friend wouldn't come up early. "Scud," I spoke into the throat mike, "tell me that we've got some kind of break here."

"Well…" Scud said slowly, "rigging the door should be pretty easy; she spends almost a full minute in the room before she even turns towards the door." He paused, "I guess she's trying to impress the boss."

I took a long breath, "well, that's something, I guess." I pulled the bill of my baseball cap low over my eyes. I heard the machinery up above us lurch into action and I looked down as the elevator car began its ascent. "Shit, that was only ten minutes," I said.

"Nine and a half," Scud corrected.

"Okay, get ready to play over the video," I told him. I looked over at Ronnie. He held a small liquid-plasma screen in his hand. If he wasn't going to be able to join me on this jaunt, at least he was going to be watching me on the video.

I made my way over to the elevator door, exactly as I had two weeks before.

"Be careful this time," Amy hissed.

I turned to her with a thin smile, "hey, this is me we're talking about." The elevator drew to a shaky halt as it reached the sixth floor.

"Okay, begin playback," I told Scud. A fraction of a second later, I heard the elevator slide open. "Let me know when it's safe to open," I said.

"Okay, open the door… now." Scud ordered.

I tripped the emergency release and slid as silently as I could into the hallway. At the same time, so that Ronnie wouldn't notice, I reached down and unplugged the microphone on my radio. I would still be able to hear anything that was said, but for a moment Ronnie wouldn't be able to hear me.

I ran to the end of the hallway.

The guard was leaning against the glass door of the vault room, facing me. "I was wondering when you were gonna show up," Janet whispered.

"Shhh, we only have a minute," I hissed. "Do you have it?"

"Yeah," Janet handed me a key for a safe box. "That's not the box with the diamond, though, what do you need that box key for?"

"Long story, who's downstairs?"

"Dominique," Janet replied. Right, that was Frenchie's name. Dominique.

"You getting all this recorded?"

"Not this," Janet told me. "How about Ronnie?"

"He's seeing our test run right now," I smiled. One of the few things Ronnie didn't know: this was actually my third break-in here. Janet and I had staged me rigging the door practically the day after Ronnie had recruited me; and we'd managed to get it on tape while Amy and I were ostensibly checking out the guard rotations. That's what Ronnie was watching right now. I held up the key she'd handed me before I nodded my gratitude at her. "Thanks, I've got to run." She'd be able to rig the door for me.

"Five seconds," Scud's voice sounded over my earphone.

I turned around and sprinted at the elevator. I slid in, safely strapping myself to a protrusion on the elevator shaft before I allowed the door to close.

"The door rigged?" Amy asked.

I swung down, plugging my microphone back in as I did so, "so far, so good," I told her.


	13. Endgame

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 13:**

"Okay, floor's clear," Scud announced, "I'm looping the tape now."

"All right," I whispered, pulling the bill of my cap lower over my eyes, "now, we go."

The three of us slid into the hallway. We actually needed Ronnie this time. The anal-retentive bastard hadn't let us know the combination for the vault. Guess he wanted to make sure we didn't dupe him.

Janet had rigged the door beautifully. I probably couldn't have done it better myself. Well, I probably could've, but I wouldn't have told her that. I pulled it open, and the three of us stepped into the vault room. I glanced over at the desk on off to the side. Yeah, all the pieces were in play.

"How much time do we have?" I asked.

"Anywhere between seven and thirteen minutes," Scud's voice replied.

"Crap," I whispered. I took a knee next to the cage door and got to work on the lock. Janet and Dominique weren't going to move in until I was actually inside the vault.

The lock was being annoying, again. My hands were shaking a little as I tried to gently nudge the tumblers into position.

"Um, Lucy," Amy said gently, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I muttered sharply.

"Time is short, Lucinda," Ronnie told me.

"Look, if you can pick it any faster, you're welcome to try," I snapped at him without turning around to face him.

With a sharp click, the lock snapped opened, and I slid the door to the cage open.

"Is either guard making a move for the elevator?" I asked.

"Not yet," Scud replied.

"Okay," I turned to Amy, "guess it's my turn to go under the beams." I pulled the spraycan out of the duffel bag, and again filled the cage with a thin mist as Amy again attached a strong magnet to the base of the vault door.

It was a tight squeeze. It was weird seeing these bright emerald beams a fraction of an inch in front of my nose. If I broke one of them, then this entire heist would come to a rather sudden end. The cops would get involved a little early. But Amy and Ronnie were able to drag me under them without either of us breaking one of the beams.

Okay, lemme just take a minute to point out that I'm not as agile as I used to be. Twisting and contorting my way to a standing position next to the vault door was a bit of a challenge. Four years ago, it would barely even have slowed me down. Use it or lose it, I guess.

"Combination, please," I twisted around to face Ronnie. _Now we find out how good a job Scud did_.

"Eight, four, seven, seven, two, nine, three, one, six," Ronnie read out the numbers as I tapped them into the console.

The change was subtle at first, then slowly, I heard the eleven five-inch bolts withdraw and with a soft _hiss,_ the door bumped gently against my back.

There's always that moment in a heist, when it hits you that you've broken into somewhere where you're not supposed to be. For me, it's usually when you open the safe, or in this case, the vault. I guess you could say I'm the goal-oriented type. I slid into the vault as the bright fluorescent lights of the vault snapped on, giving the room a metallic, sterile feel.

It was actually a fairly small room. Maybe ten feet square, but each wall was lined with metal lock boxes. Some were small, others large and deep. At the front wall, right next to the vault door, was a small telephone, a direct line to Tippmann so that someone could call for help if he'd accidentally locked himself inside the vault. I quickly memorized the position of lock box 137. It was a larger box in the back corner.

"What's the box number?" I asked.

"Fourteen," Ronnie replied.

I sat down and looked at the lock. Yeah, I could open this.

"Guys, the guard's on the move," Scud announced.

"Shit!" I yelled. Good job, Janet. I heard the distinctive _click_ of a round being chambered. "Ronnie, no!" I yelled. I poked my head out of the vault door. "We can work with this."

"Give me an option," he said coldly, holding the Glock firmly in his hands. I closed my eyes, trying to look as if I was frantically trying to come up with something.

"Lucy!" Amy hissed frantically.

"Lock me in," I said quickly, as if it had just occurred to me.

"What?" Ronnie's gun dropped.

"Take everything back to the elevator and lock me in the vault. Close the cage, but don't lock it. I'll crack the lock box while the guard's checking this floor." I explained frantically. If Janet was doing her job right, she'd wait until Amy and Ronnie cleared the floor before she went up; but if she took too long, Ronnie was going to get suspicious. "You can't open the vault from the inside," Ronnie said.

"Amy can let me out, just get the hell out of here," I snapped. I watched as they frantically started to throw all our equipment into the duffel bag.

With a heave, I pulled the heavy vault door closed.

Yeah, turns out there was something I hadn't planned on. As soon as the vault door closed, all the lights turned off. It was like a refrigerator.

"Shit," I muttered.

"What is it," I heard Ronnie's voice over my earphone.

"Are you back in the shaft?"

"Yes, what is it?" Ronnie asked again.

"Okay, you're going to have to sit tight for a little while. The lights just went out in here, picking this lock may take me a little longer."

"How much longer?"

"I don't know," I told him, "I'll keep updating you every few minutes, but the guard may have to make a few trips up here before I'm done."

"I'll wait, Lucinda," Ronnie replied, "but not for long."

-x-

Even blind, the lockbox only took me about fifteen minutes. Enough that I just came up against Janet's third trip up to the sixth floor. I've I'd been able to see, I could've done it in five flat. I did the mental arithmetic and smiled. If we'd still had our OCD guard, I could've stolen the diamond. Nice to know I still had it.

"Are you done yet?" Ronnie asked for about the fourteenth time.

"Just about," I replied as I slid the box open, "give me about five more minutes."

"Guard's on the way up again," Scud announced.

I smiled, right on time. Janet had just bought me another ten minutes, and that would be plenty.

"Box is open. As soon as she's done on the sixth floor, you can come in," I quickly darted over to the vault door, leaving the lock box open.

This one would be a little hard to do by touch, but I'd gone over it so many times that I figured I could do it. I quickly sat down and yanked my right shoe off. Then, I carefully teased the shoelace between my thumb and forefinger until the tiny end of a wire protruded through the fabric of the shoelace.

I carefully pulled it free, and put it between my teeth as I set about disassembling the emergency phone next to the vault door.

Once the plate on the side of the phone was removed, I gently felt around for a pair of electronic contacts. And with the wire, I created a jumper circuit between them. If Scud was right (and he hadn't led me wrong before) that would fool the system into thinking that the phone was off the hook, without actually opening a phone line.

I took a deep breath as I prepared for the endgame.

-x-

I ducked down as the bright, harsh light flooded the vault. Sitting in pitch black for almost a half-hour will do that to you, I guess. I looked over to the vault which was just barely cracked open, and opened it just enough that I could lean my upper body out. Bastard was already dragging Amy back under the laser beams. I guess he didn't want to take any chances.

"Okay, send the fake in," I told him.

"No way, send the real one out first," He countered. Behind him, I could see Amy kneel down next to the desk while his attention was on me.

"Fine," I muttered.

I walked over to the lock box, carefully sliding it out of its slot before I opened the lid.

Forty carats of diamond doesn't sound like much, but it filled the palm of my hand. It was exquisitely carved in a perfect oval shape. I held it up to the light, spinning it in between my fingertips. It was perfectly symmetrical; its thousands of facets bounced the harsh fluorescent light into the walls around me. "Unicorn," I whispered.

"What was that?" Ronnie asked.

"Nothing," I said quickly. I ran back to the vault door, then rolled the diamond across the cage, under the laser beams where Ronnie was waiting. Ronnie slid the diamond in his pocket before he turned around and walked to the duffel bag. Amy was standing right behind him, and the two ran into each other.

The Glock fell from Ronnie's jacket and clattered to the floor. For a split second, they both looked down at the semi-automatic pistol on the floor before they both reached for it.

Amy was a fraction faster.

She snatched the pistol from the ground training it on Ronnie for a moment. For a split-second, I actually believed she was going to shoot him. She flipped the gun around, holding it butt-first out to him. "I guess I'm not like you," she said to him, then she turned to face me, "either of you."

Ronnie slid the gun back into his jacket and knelt by the duffel bag as he produced the fake.

I gotta admit, whoever he had doing the forgery had done a bang-up job. If I hadn't known that it was a fake, I would've been fooled. Even a trained jeweler would have trouble telling the difference. As I looked at the fake, I again watched as Amy knelt beside the desk while Ronnie's attention was on me. "Good fake," I admitted, trying to draw Ronnie's attention for a few extra seconds.

"Only the best," Ronnie replied.

I disappeared back into the vault, and I dropped the fake into the lock box before I closed it and locked it. Finally, I slid back out of the vault.

I froze as I stepped into the cage. Ronnie's Glock was pointed directly at Amy's chest.

"I owed you this," Ronnie told me. "I was sent to jail, and I lost a very good friend last time." Very deliberately, he squeezed the trigger four times. Ronnie wasn't a terribly good shot, but at that range, he didn't need to be. Amy sagged to the ground, a neat circle of bullet holes forming around the center of her chest, a dark stain forming on her jumpsuit.

I took a step forward, then halted, as he lifted the gun to point at me. "We're even," he said simply. "Step into the vault. You'll be caught tomorrow, you'll go to jail, and thanks largely to your efforts, there's no evidence that I was ever here."

"You think I'm just gonna let myself get caught?" I asked.

"You have two choices," Ronnie said simply, "you can lock yourself in that vault, or I can shoot you now." His eyes narrowed, "but you won't do that; because I know you better than that. No, you'll go to jail, you'll live, because you know that as long as you're breathing, you have a chance to get back at me." He waved the gun at Amy's lifeless body, crumpled on the floor, "and don't fret over the DEB," he added, "we both know that girls like that are a dime a dozen." He raised the gun so that it pointed at the center of my forehead, "now, step into the vault, please."

With a look of unmitigated fury, I slid back into the vault, pulling it closed behind me.


	14. Final Scene

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Chapter 14:**

I took a moment to breathe. In a few minutes, Ronnie would have cleared out. He would've locked the cage behind him, and he would've left Amy's body behind, figuring that I would get the blame for her murder.

So I figured that it was about time I got out.

I dug around in my shirt, finally producing a safe box key, and immediately ran to one of the larger boxes, box number 137 in the back corner. I twisted the key, and slid the large, deep drawer opened.

I smiled. Max had come through, God bless her. I pulled out a yellow hardhat, a pair of rubber boots, a gray rain jacket and an air tank and mask.

At every step of a heist, you only need to keep three things in mind. Time, place, and method. Where, when and how. I guess what's true for journalism is true for larceny. This holds true for every single step of the heist. Getting into the building, acquiring the loot, and the getaway; which, interestingly enough, is actually the hardest part of any heist. Ronnie had made the mistake of underplanning his getaway; and in the process, he'd put me exactly where I wanted to be; like throwing the rabbit into the briar patch.

Something Scud and I had pieced together pretty much from day one was how to get someone out of the building if they were locked inside the vault.

Burn the building down.

Or at the very least, convince the building that it's about to burn down.

The vault was designed to protect valuables, not kill someone who happened to be unfortunate enough to lock themselves inside when a fire broke out. So, if a massive fire broke out in the building, and someone was inside the vault, it opened. All that needed to be done was to lift the emergency phone off the hook while the fire alarm was ringing, and the vault door would open. Or at least, someone with a little electronic savvy had to convince the phone that it was off the hook.

I quickly donned the boots and jacket, then pulled on the hardhat and the oxygen mask. In a few minutes, I'd transformed myself into a perfect facsimile of a firefighter. Then I glanced down at my wristwatch. It was perfect timing.

All we'd had to do was install a device in the ventilation ducts which would produce enough heat and smoke that the security system would be convinced that a massive fire had broken out on the sixth floor. Ronnie had been nice enough to let us install just such a device. The oscillator I'd installed to fool the vault's time lock was also an exorbitantly complicated Molotov cocktail. And it was due to go off any minute now. It would produce enough smoke and heat to set off every fire sensor on the floor, and at the same time, it would burn out the power lines for the entire floor; shutting off every light, and video camera.

Even through the thick metal walls of the vault, I could hear the fire alarm go off. Automatically, the fire department would be called, and the sprinkler system would activate, effectively washing away any fingerprints Amy or I had left behind.

Sometimes, I'm so brilliant, I even amaze myself.

With a sound analogous to a _hiss_, the vault door swung opened, and the lock at the far end of the cage disengaged. I quickly paused to remove any evidence of tampering from the emergency phone, then I stepped out, and closed the vault door behind me. Now all I needed to do was wait for the fire department to show up, and slip out.

First though, I knelt down beside the desk and remove an item which Amy had taped there while Ronnie's attention was on me sending him the diamond.

I pulled out a Glock .357 which had been taped to the bottom of the desk, and quickly ejected the clip. I let out a long, relieved breath as I realized that it was loaded with hollow-point bullets. This was Ronnie's gun. We'd smuggled an identical model in on our first trip up to the vault, and Amy had taped it to the bottom of the desk while we appealed to Ronnies sense of modesty. For the first time in two weeks, I actually allowed myself to relax as I stepped out of the vault room, and slid quietly into one of the adjacent offices to wait for the fire department to arrive.

-x-

Scud was waiting for me when I got out of the building, leaning up against the '69 Mustang. There were no fewer than four fire engines waiting around the building while the department cleared them. Slipping away was just obscenely easy.

I quickly stripped out of the uniform and dropped it in the back seat. Then I pulled Scud into a tight hug. "God, Scud, you were brilliant."

"Well, shucks," Scud smiled.

"You want to watch the final scene?" I asked.

Scud shook his head, "naah, I told Janet I'd take her out for a late dinner after this all sorted out."

-x-

You'd be surprised how much plastique you can pack into the frame of a Beretta; and how much thermite you can pack into the frame of a revolver. It was just enough to blow the safe open, burn up just about anything Amy or I had touched, and surrounded by barrels of quite flammable wine, the whole building would go up like a giant tinderbox.

In a few minutes, Ronnie was really gonna regret having put some of the more incriminating evidence in a fireproof lockbox. For example, the paper on which Scud had printed out the vault's code was there, if he was consistent with his usual MO, he probably had a picture of the diamond, probably a list of its planned movements as well. More than enough to convict someone who also happened to have the diamond in his back pocket.

I arrived at the safehouse just as the fire department had managed to get the fires under control.

Now, I admit that it was out of pure vindictiveness that the gun Amy had handed Ronnie had a small microphone and transceiver on it. It really served no real purpose for the heist, but it did allow me to listen in on the full conversation as I slipped a small earpiece into my right ear.

"We got an anonymous tip that an attempt had been made to steal a diamond from the Customs vault," a police officer was saying, "the caller suggested that you might be able to shed some light on it."

Ronnie shrugged, "I'm certain I don't know what you're talking about."

"Are you armed?"

"Gun in my back, permit in my pocket," Ronnie replied.

"Hand it over," the officer ordered.

Ronnie complied, and the officer turned it over in his hands a few times.

"This has been fired recently," he said.

"Target practice," Ronnie dismissed the comment, holding his hand out for the weapon.

The officer ejected the clip and looked down at it quizzically for a moment. "You do target practice with a gun loaded with blanks?"

"What?"

"Sir!" A second cop ran from the factory, holding a lockbox in her hands. "I think you might want to see this."

I really wish I could've seen the look on Ronnie's face at that moment. I'd like to think that he was just starting to piece it all together.

"Well, what have we here?" The officer said. He nodded to her, "book him," he ordered.

The female cop quickly patted Ronnie down. "Sir?" She asked, "I think we have something here." She handed him the diamond I'd worked so hard to steal for the last two weeks.

"Oh my," the officer said, "I think you may have a problem."

"I want my lawyer," Ronnie announced.

"Good idea," the officer replied. "Tell him we're booking you for grand larceny." He spoke into the microphone on his shoulder. "See if we can get our hands on the security footage for the sixth floor of the customs house," he said.

I was pretty sure they'd find that footage interesting.

-x-

I was still grinning pretty stupidly when I made it back to the car. I threw the earpiece into the car and ran to the driver's side door.

"You're under arrest!" A voice announced from behind me, "keep your hands where I can see them."

I turned around to see the female cop that had been frisking Ronnie only moments ago. Apparently she'd managed to slip away.

"It took you long enough," I smiled, "I thought I was gonna have to wait for you all night."

Amy pulled off the officer's cap, and carefully lifted the dark wig from her head. She again ran her fingers over the very thin hair on her head. "That's really gonna take a lot of getting used to."

"You were brilliant," I said, wrapping her up in my arms, "what a performance. For a second there, I thought you hadn't managed to switch the guns. You play dead better than anyone I've ever seen." I pulled her close, my lips finding hers as we held each other close not quite being able to motivate ourselves to let go.

"Um, as much as I don't want to put a damper on this," Amy whispered as she pulled away, "we're just around the corner from, like, a bazillion cops."

I rolled my eyes, "always the practical one." I slid behind the wheel as Amy flopped down in the passenger seat, a huge shit-eating grin on her face.

Nobody even paid any attention as the '69 Mustang pulled away from the curb and drove away.

We were both quiet as we drove through the silent LA streets until I finally turned to Amy. "So," I said, trying to sound casual, "did you get it?"

A wide grin appeared on Amy's face as she held up a large blue diamond in the full moon's light.

"I think it's fair to say that it'll be a while before they realize they've got a fake in their hands," Amy told me.

"You know, you could've just left that with the cops," I said.

"Hey, if someone could steal it from a US customs vault, do you really think it's gonna be safe in a police evidence locker?" Amy said innocently.

I smiled at her. "You realize that we just stole one of the world's most famous diamonds from the US customs vault? Nobody's ever done that."

Amy nodded.

"So," I grinned, "what are we going to do to top this?"

Amy just smiled.


	15. Epilogue

If you think I actually own any of this, you're wrong. It's the brain child of Angela Robinson and the property of Sony Pictures.

**Epilogue:**

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be boarding flight 138 with service to Barcelona through New York in about thirty minutes. At this time, we would like to invite those of our passengers traveling with small children to please board at this time," The announcer's voice called over the PA.

"That's us," Amy said.

"I'll be right back," I said quickly, "I need to make a quick bathroom break."

"Okay, don't be long," Amy replied.

I walked over to the sink and my features scrunched at the unfamiliar image in front of me. Amy's hair grew faster than mine. She'd have a decent headful of hair long before I did.

I froze as I heard one of the stalls behind me open, and the distinctive _clomp, clomp_ of a pair of army boots against the tile floor. I didn't even turn around as I said, "so, you're bringing me in?"

"That's my job," Max replied.

Finally, I turned to face her. Her revolver was leveled at my chest. At that range she'd practically liquefy my heart if she pulled the trigger now.

"How'd you get that past security?" I asked nodding at the gun.

"Um… Government agent?" Max looked at me, deadpan.

"Oh… right."

"So, uh, what happened with Ronnie?" I asked.

"Videotape shows him arriving with an unidentified white male who he then proceeds to shoot, clever idea with the whole shaved-head, baggy clothing thing. The cameras never got a clear view of your faces. Ronnie, however, they got clear as day." Max said. "They've added murder one to his rap, but they never found the body so they don't know if they can make it stick, but they've got him on grand larceny." She looked at me for a moment. "You know, I'm quite the hero because of you. I'm the DEB who brought down Ronnie Cockburn. Ms. Petrie was shitting kittens when she found out."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah." She replied. "So the thing is this: I could probably screw up pretty badly a few times and nobody would have a thing to say about it. So I'm gonna warn you again…"

"If I break her heart, you'll break my neck?"

"Something like that," she lowered the gun. "Now, I can't make it look like I just let you go," she turned her cheek slightly to the side, "so make it look good, but not _too_ good."

A thin smile spread across my face.

-x-

"What happened to your hand?" Amy asked as I sat back down next to her.

"My hand?" I looked down at my right hand, all the knuckles were bright red, and one of them was bleeding. "Must've been something that happened during the break-in."

"No, it was fine this morning," Amy insisted.

"Hmmm, funny that," I said idly.

"Lucy," Amy said sharply.

"You know," I said as I looked at the lineup of people waiting to board the plane, "I seem to remember you mentioning something about how if I got us out of that mess, you'd be mine forever."

"I migh… have said something like that," Amy said slowly.

"Well, then. Since I own you now, I'm ordering you to stop worrying about it." I offered her a quick smile. "What say we just disappear?"

Amy smiled, "now _that_," she said, "is the best offer I've had all year."


End file.
